“It dawned on me something that lean with those hops would be a perfect vehicle to try MSG in, which is something I’ve toyed around with but never went full guns,” Bates says. “I tinkered with some dosing rates using our Good Times [lager] as a blending agent… [I] found one that seemed suitable and decided to pull the trigger on the whole batch of Crisps, and I think it came out well.”
Salt in beer is, as any brewer worth their, well… never mind, is far from uncommon. In its most basic form calcium sulphate—perhaps better known as gypsum—has been used to alter water chemistry through a process known as ‘Burtonisation’ for decades. But the history of salt in beer goes deeper than mere water chemistry. In the US, drinkers have been salting their beer for various reasons for decades. Examples cite it being used by drinkers at the bar to improve the palatability of post-prohibition beers. While ‘savoury’ is not a concept we might automatically associate with beer, it is one of its characteristics that, perhaps even subconsciously, has always been desirable.
But MSG is not salt. It is used in a similar way, as a seasoning, and is created via natural means—essentially fermentation—but it does not react with the same flavour receptors on your tongue as salt does. It has a controversial past—which I won’t go into here—but the long and short of it is that MSG is not bad for you. (This excellent podcast produced by food writers Lucy Dearlove and Anna Sulan Masing is a good primer if you’d like to learn more about MSG.) Instead, MSG works by stimulating your umami receptors, dialling the volume knob up on certain flavours, say, for example the lime juice and white grape notes found in Riwaka and Nelson Sauvin hops.
And that’s what Crisps gives you. The ultra-light body makes it drink like a light lager, but it just keeps gently hitting you with soft, lapping ocean waves of fruit and zest, with perhaps a little savoury herbaceousness creeping in around the edges. But maybe that’s psychosomatic, because I know the beer contains a small amount of MSG, and it’s called ‘Crisps’. I imagine most people won’t check that fact, but they will find a beer that they can’t, for some reason, seem to put down.
“MSG takes the existing flavours and makes them ‘pop’ more, like sprinkling a little sparkle on what is already there,” Bates says. “It gives that craveability to want to go back for more, like an itch you can’t scratch. You don’t know exactly what it is and can’t quite put your finger on it but it makes you want to return for just one more sip.”
Perhaps savoury isn’t the right word here. There are other, better, words I would use to describe this beer such as ‘bright’, ‘luminous’, or perhaps my favourite of all ‘resonant’. But ‘Resonant IPA’ doesn’t sound like a style that will trend well amongst the LinkedIn marketing set. Savoury though, that’s tangible and, most importantly, communicable.
The MSG worked so well in this beer I’d be angry if Duration didn’t repeat the act a second time. But does that mean it needs to become a ‘thing’? Now it exists on the Internet as well as in real life, maybe it will. All it takes is a few brewers reading this and deciding to try MSG for themselves. On this evidence, however, they’ll do well to get even close to a beer this good, as whatever they did during its development, Crisps is a beer that really sings.
