The word itself, and indeed the whole idea of hope, has always struck me as somewhat paradoxical. Clearly, hope is a profoundly important concept to many people who find themselves in difficult, sometimes tragic circumstances, where it becomes the only thing that keeps them moving forward. As such, hope clearly is a valuable thing. On the other hand I’ve always thought of hope as something desperate, a last resort if you will, that one has to cling to when everything else seems, well, hopeless.
Any person that has followed my ramblings in the last ten years or so will know that I have largely lost hope. More specifically I’ve lost any hope of legacy beer drinkers like myself being satisfied and served by the modern beer industry in the USA. Those of us identifying as legacy drinkers, i.e., those seeking traditional styles and beer that tastes like, you know, beer, have been beaten down by the utter tsunami of hazed shit, fake sours and melted candy bars. This is not an exaggeration. The damage that the proliferation of these beers has done to the traditional beer scene is immense, and I have written about that time and time again. Whether that be via the decimation of taproom lists or the absolute and almost complete devastation of the import side of the industry, we, the legacy drinkers, have been well and truly shafted.
When I bring this up – which to be fair, is in almost every conversation I have with people about beer – folk will occasionally point to small, ‘green shoots of recovery’ where a local brewery might have produced something that isn’t a fake, fruited sour, or a local bar has a keg of a stout that doesn’t include honey-nut cheerios. I see these beers intermittently too, but there never seems to be any momentum generated by them, and almost always the next beer on deck in each place is the proverbial fluff-nutt, marshmallow, blue-green, sour fruit shit. This stuff never seems to end. Ever.
So what will bring us around? What hope do we have? For a start we have to remove all tariffs that relate to imported beer. That’s a completely separate issue to the underlying problems that have been around for circa. 10 years and that I’m talking about here, but it nevertheless is worth mentioning. That’s not a political comment either, it’s just a fact of personal, documented experience that tariffs are impeding imports significantly which is making an already terrible situation much worse. Assuming that sometime in the future that will get corrected, what else will help? I think we have to look to the major, largest independent brewers. Like it or not these guys set trends in the “craft” (I use the term loosely) industry, and they have the power to move things. Now, don’t get me wrong. I do not think that their motivation is the same as mine, it’s always about sales for them (and all others), but they maybe see that a return to sanity might lead to more $ in the coffers. I mean, how many more barrel-aged this and that can the market take? Seriously.
That brings me to Sierra Nevada Pils. Honestly, and for the reasons stated above, this is first beer in quite some time that I am genuinely ‘excited’ about. Why? Well firstly I assume that SN will do a good job. They have a enviable record of success in terms of length of tenure and in terms of traditional styles (remember the classic yellow label stout and the blue label porter), that would suggest that a pilsner is something that they can pull-off with aplomb. Secondly, for the reasons that I have stated above regarding major players leading the way with traditional styles, I see their release of this beer as a potentially important step.
Of course I have to have something to whine about so let me get that out of the way here. The cynic in me sees the prominent use of the words “Craft Lager” on the packaging as there being a crass attempt to cash in on the relatively recent lager obsession (I have a separate rant about that). I hate cans, period, and I think that the use of the “proper pils”, 8.4 oz cans, to give me 67.2 oz rather than the 72 oz that 6, 12 oz cans would, is actually a terribly convenient piece of ‘shrinkflation’ rather any need (or want) to give a nod to tradition. Those things aside, I’m glad than Sierra Nevada Premium PILS is here.
Only time will tell if this represents a move in the right direction regarding traditional beer, but for now, I’m a little more hopeful than I have been in a while.
