Is American Beer Any Good?

I've never been much of a beer drinker. Except for once in a great while, I've always been more of a wine and brandy man. But, living in a city where microbreweries are all the rage and tastings of artisanal beer are classy events, I can attest to the artistry that has taken hold of this particular potent potable.

Nowadays, you are as likely to be able to order a two-ounce beer flight as a similar wine flight in any number of fine restaurants. Experts and tasting leaders determine a beer's origin by taste alone and beer snobbery is on the rise. Paul Giamatti has competition.

I remember a sweet line from the movie, SPARTACUS, when Kirk Douglas is dining with his officers and says, "The best wine is from home wherever it is." Increasingly, that is the feeling toward beer. It's not just a matter of American vs. German or whatnot. It's more about the respect people have for small batches and local ingredients. Home, wherever it is.

First, I should say that I don't drink so anything I say is only hearsay. However, friends and family who do drink, say that American micro-brew beers rate equal if not better than European beers. India Pale Ale, Anchor Steam Beer, Samuel Adams and a local restaurant/micro-brew chain called Gordon Birsch seem to rate highly.

I remember in the military, that "those in the know" would drink San Miguel (from the Phillipines) and not "The King of Beers". In the 60's, beer on a milirtary base was something called 3.5, which was like a near-beer or no-beer. Some Mexican beers are very European in taste, or so I've heard. Of course, here in California , Mexican beers are almost like a "local brew".

I was born in a country that thought warm beer was the height of culture, so what do I know?

I remember, as a small boy in England, when my father decided to brew his own Guiness-style stout. He mixed it in the bathtub and then bottled it in about 20 bottles. The problem was that he forgot that the stuff expanded as it fermented. He'd put it in the bottle too soon and capped them. A couple of weeks went by and there were a series of extremely loud explosions. Every bottle had exploded. There was glass and the smell of Guiness throughout the house. The smell got progressively stronger as the residual fermented even more where it had soaked into the floors and walls.

My Mother was not amused.

When the local parish priest came for a visit he was very amused.

So much for home micro-brewing.

To: ExPat,

I bet that was the last time your father tried home micro-brewing! On second thought, maybe your father started something. Don't they do something like that at fraternity parties!?!

ExPat, we do have more in common than I thought. I, too, don't drink. But my son and his wife spent a year in Germany and he now considers himself quite knowledgeable on German beers. It is his thesis that cultures get used to what they brew and therefore national palates differ as to what they call The Best, to use the previously castigated superlative. He says German beers are much more bitter than US beers and, since he prefers that taste, he now knows why he has not particularly liked beer before. The frat party kegs just never appealed to him, for which we, as his parents, were grateful at the time. Now he has found a couple of brands of German beer he can get here in the US and enjoys one occasionally. In fact, we have a couple of Paulaner Hefe-Weizen in the frig now, left over from their last visit.

I am sure it is much like wines. Personal palate is what counts here. My husband prefers a cab., while, to his great disgust, a good friend likes merlot. Go figure.

To: LaDonna,

I missed out on the fraternity fun. When I returned home from the service I also returned to college, but I didn't join a fraternity. At the time, I thought I was "too old"! Of course, if the "Delta House" (from the movie Animal House) had been on campus..........

My mother never let my let my father forget the incident. But years later my father told me the parish priest asked for the recipe! Communion with Guinness and Irish soda bread sounds interesting.

What about sororities!?!

To: Spinner,

I think your son is right. I think taste in food is the same way. While there is much to enjoy from other cultures food, there are always items that only "the natives" can get thrilled about. I found this to be true when I tried certain Vietnamese dishes, Korean and middle eastern dishes. I had a Thai dish once that the locals said was very mild. I think it was basically pureed hot peppers! Only a Scot could like that delicious dish called haggis.

You're right about wines, too. When wine experts begin talking about the side of the vineyard that the grapes grew on (and apparently they can really tell), and chemical content of the soil the grapes grew in (they can taste it) it's time for me to go home.

But, I can tell what country and plantation the arabica coffee beans were harvested from..............go figure. (Ha!Ha!)

To: ExPat,

I also returned to college "later" in life (I think they called us "non-traditional students")! No, I did not join a sorority, but I am proud to say I was in an honor society, for education.

To: Spinner,

Good Morning! : )

Well now, I too am not qualified to weigh in on the subject at hand, which to the chagrin of others, does not usually serve as a deterrent for me adding my two cents …. but I’ll make an exception today and simply share a fond boyhood memory that was shaken loose from the cobwebs by ExPat’s mention of the visit to his home by the parish priest when the suds were flowing.

I grew up in a blue-collared catholic neighborhood in the south-side of Chicago. My family lived on the third floor of an apartment building that was surrounded by bungalows and offered a bird’s eye view of the church and rectory, which was only a long city block away from our neighborhoods commercial district which had the usual assortment of delicatessens, pharmacies, and bakeries and of course, the local bar.

The Monsignor of the church was a rather large, silver-haired, elderly Irishman who liked to take evening walks from the residential area of the neighborhood up to the commercial district carrying his gold tipped cane and majestically guiding his pride and joy; two massive St. Bernard dogs. He usually began his walks around twilight time so I still had some free time to be outside before the streetlights would turn on. To say that he was an impressive figure striding down the street would have been an understatement! With his dark, dare I say ominous robes, cane and bigger-than-life companions; nothing could possibly slow him down or stand in his way. Nothing that is except for the neighborhood bar where you would often find his two loyal companions leashed to a parking meter, silently and patiently guarding the entrance.

Later in the evenings, I would find myself looking out the window, watching as these two large dogs would be pulling and guiding the good monsignor safely back to the rectory under the cover of dark. It was a sight to behold.

Sorry for inflicting this long Kodak moment upon you, but it was ExPat’s story that started it. Thank you sir for waking up the memory.

ExPat:

Hot enough today in LA for you for that warm guiness?

ExPat clearly has the seminal story today. Here's how it resonates with me. When I was in college, I was a philosopy major...not a chemistry major...so when I saw dozens of pomegranate bushes down by the river, I decided to make wine. I was living in a tiny student apartment above a garage and, like ExPat's dad, I totally misjudged the fermentation time and bottled way too early. One night, about 4am, twelve bottles, on their sides above the kitchen cabinets, exploded in sequence. After I pried myseld off the ceiling and turned on the light, the kitchen walls had turned beautiful red and there was a lake on the floor. Education takes many forms.

To: LaDonna,

We have things in common...... that'll get the gossip going again. Check out the last few comments from others on yesterday's post and you'll see what I mean. It's all in good fun. I trust your weekend is everything you expected it to be?

Congratulations on the Honor Society, that's a major accomplishment.

To: Spinner,

Yes, the heat is intense today in L.A. I'm in the San Fernando Valley and it's usually 10 degrees hotter than Downtown L.A. They're predicting it will only be in the low 70's tonight. Water and Ice-tea are my drinks of choice but even they can get warm very fast in this heat, especially inside my vehicle.

But it is a beautiful day!

To: South-Side John,

That's a good memory to have. I'm glad that it's been re-awakened.

To: tajar,

I can only hope that old pomegranate juice smells better than stale fermented Guinness. At least you had a new color on the walls! If you believe Liebnitz, at least it happened in the best of all possible worlds, so it was meant to be!

I remember my first experiment with home brewing in the late 1980s. I didn't know much, but I did know that a constant cool temperature was a key factor in quality. And a real challenge in Arizona during the summer.

I racked my brain for ideas about keeping the wort (vocabulary booster) at a nice 60 to 70 degrees F and finally thought of the little room that house our office server, a delicate beast that had its own dedicated air conditioner.

I stashed the brew tub in a corner, hid it behind piles of old printouts and eventually produced a tasty light ale, but only after two weeks extreme nervousness at the prospect of having to explain how I destroyed a $300,000 computer in an accidental beer explosion.

To Spinner:

Your son has a good point but it only goes so far. Multicultural and international cities like New York and L.A. attract millions of serious foodies every year precisely BECAUSE we are bored stiff with that national palate. On the rare occasions that I drink beer, it is virtually always German or Belgian. The origins are usually as much of a reason for my selection as anything else. While there are more small towns enjoying the national palate than there are big cities sampling the international smorgasboard, there are more people in any given metropolis than a hundred small towns. The majority of people may bear out your son's theory, but I can't imagine that it is a very wide majority.

When it comes to wine, we want to be wary of generalizations. I also prefer cabernet to merlot. But I have, on occasion, had some terrible cabernets and some excellent merlots. The grape alone does not automatically assure a good or bad quality. When it comes to chardonnay, however, I am the anti-Will Rogers. I have never met a chardonnay that I liked!

I was at the World Beer Festival in Raleigh a few weeks back, where they were selling a T-shirt that read The Liver Is Evil and Must Be Punished. Over 400 beers from around the globe were being sampled. (One got the impression that some of the attendees planned to try each and every one.)

I was not so ambitious, and ended up sampling 22 of the offerings. I pretty much avoided beers I know, and tried to focus on new taste experiences. The ones I tried:

Atlantic Brewing Co., Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale

Azalea Coast Brewing Co., Teach's Chocolate Stout

Big Boss Brewing Co., Angry Angel Kolsh Style Ale

Birra Amarcord, Prima Donna (A beer brewed on the Republic of San Marino)

Carolina Brewing Co., Imperial Stout

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Indian Brown Ale & Aprihop

Duvel Moortgat Brouwerij, Duvel Golden Ale

Foothills Brewing, Hurricane Hefeweizen

Green Moutain Beverage, Woodchuck Cider Pear

Highland Brewing Co., Gaelic Ale

Leelanau Brewing Co., Whaleback White

Moon River Brewing Co., The Captain's Porter

Natty Greene's Brewing Co., Old Town Brown Cask Ale (Hands down the finest ale we tasted.)

New Holland Brewing Co., Dragon's Milk Barrel Aged Ale

North Coast Brewing Co., Old Rasputin

Otter Creek Brewing Co., Otter Creek Copper Ale

Outer Banks Brewing Co., Lemongrass Wheat & Compass Rose

Pyramid Breweries, Hefeweizen & Apricot Ale

Top of the Hill Brewery, Blueberry Wheat

In general the foreign beers were more complex and creative, but the finest was North Carolina produced - the Old Town Brown Cask Ale.