When Matthew Curtis first announced the subject of this month’s Session he was at great pains to point out that he wasn’t asking for tirades, rather he was seeking some deeper, more reflective writing. I sympathize with Matt’s position, and I’m happy to attempt to oblige, but since most of my own beer writing exists strictly for my own sanity and catharsis where I moan (largely to myself), this isn’t so easy for me!
Having said that, a decent amount of my writing does include more serious thought, and I should state plainly that I am 100% on Matt’s side. He’s asking for a more mature perspective, and perhaps a little more introspection as it relates to beer writing. I think that’s potentially a good idea, but I also think there are some fundamental issues in beer that are significant obstacles to such work. In short, I just don’t think that beer is quite there yet.
Although the last 20 – 30 years have seen huge cultural changes surrounding the position of beer in society, I’m not sure that we are in a place where a critical mass of people care enough about more serious writing. I mean, I do, Matt clearly does, and it may be that nearly all of the people taking part in this month’s Session do as well, but that’s a pretty small cadre. Even though I take beer ferociously seriously, many others don’t. As long as that’s the case, considered, even academic or intellectual writing surrounding beer, will too often fall upon deaf ears.
When I say ‘many others’ this includes people that work for breweries, bars, distributors, and retailers, all of whom make their living from the product. I’m absolutely staggered when countless numbers of people in those groups appear to have infinitely less knowledge and understanding than I do, a bloke who has never been paid a single red cent for any of my involvement in beer despite being immersed for what basically adds up to four decades. Routinely, I know more, and care more, than virtually all of them do. It’s as rare as hen’s teeth for me to mention a book about beer that I have in my own library, and expect people working in beer to be able to engage in even the lowest level of conversation surrounding it and its contents.
It’s odd that such a lack of care or interest exists. This extends across so many areas; bars and their staff misrepresenting styles, inexplicable typos on beer menus, menus being hopelessly out of date or not existing at all, dirty glassware, distributors and retailers not knowing what they are selling or knowing anything about bottling and best before dates, the list of transgressions goes on and on and on and exists across every element from production to consumption
Another issue surrounds the beer itself, which in turn reflects the consumer base. In wine – an inevitable if somewhat reluctant comparison – there hasn’t been a huge clamor for new things, rather the established still rules (mostly). Beer appears to feel the need for constant (failed) attempts at re-invention. Like the colossal number of “beers” that literally don’t taste like beer. It seems like beer doesn’t want to be taken seriously, at least not by a sufficient number of people.
Prior to #MeToo, the juvenile, sexual innuendo that accompanied so many beer names and labels was quite prevalent (remember the Clown Shoes debacle of almost 15 years ago?) Decried at the time as exhibiting a lack of maturity, those names have mostly passed, but they have been replaced by the gaudy, cartoonish, fantasy/sci fi/horror-like artwork, that again appears to be aimed squarely at a much younger audience. The beer consumer it appears remains immature.
Thus month’s Session should make for some interesting reading. I’m certainly not saying that Matt is wrong to ask for critique over criticism, but I would say that people that agree with him and care (me included) shouldn’t be surprised when most of the beer industry isn’t remotely interested in such a pursuit. I’m 100% ‘in’ when it comes to more serious, deeper thinking surrounding beer and beer writing, but there’s going to be a really small audience for that. Serious beer writing does exist in the person(s) of folk like Adrian Tierney-Jones, Pete Brown, Ron Pattinson et al, and there are Beer Writers Guilds on both sides of the Atlantic, but what the masses still want is the “writing” associated with beer-bro, untappd ticking, dick-waving “pastry stouts”, “crispy bois”, fake “puckering sours”, and “dank juice”. I fear that beer still hasn’t grown up sufficiently to respond to what Matt calls for. We’ll see.
