What is good beer? - Revisited. Lively, heart and soul.

Marching to soulful tunes.  photo ©2008 Charlie Papazian

This is part 2 revisting my June 26 post, What is Good Beer?

Chipper Dave says: It takes not only the beverage itself but it also includes all of the following: the right setting, the mood, the people you share it with, the season, the food you're eating with it, the type of glass you drink it out of, how well your sense of smell is and how keen your taste buds are. You also have to train yourself to enjoy certain types of beer. Not everyone can pick up a hoppy IPA and love it from the first sip….

            I'm a firm believer that homebrewers make some of the best beers in the world. Just look at how many beer companies started out that way. A true enthusiast of the craft will put their heart and sole into making a good beer. So it's really not a simple question to answer. A good way to sum it up is - IT DEPENDS.

Well said Chipper D. If what beer wasn’t such an emotional beverage certainly Corona would not have had the success it has. For a beer that tastes not out of the ordinary for a light lager, there are millions who associate the beer and lime with beach experiences and the memories it brings back. It really isn’t about the taste as I pointed out in my July 7 Post.

Does the food you eat really change the beer experience? You bet it does. Try doing a cheese tasting with several cheeses and several beers. One of my favorites is a sheep milk feta cheese matched with an Irish-style stout.   Coconut porter (yes I know that this is hard to find) with a Thai red curry is another worldly experience. 

Taste a crisp hoppy traditional pilsener on its own and it will be refreshing an joyful. Taste it with a grilled salmon or with a steak and you transform the pilsener to world class memories. 

“…train yourself to enjoy certain types of beer.” Is probably one of the ten commandments of beer initiation.   I’ll never forget the young woman I talked to on the floor of the Great American Beer Festival three years ago. We were both on “camera” and being somewhat interviewed.   I asked her about the dark beer she was drinking.   She replied that she was a stout enthusiast. “I wasn’t always a stout beer drinker. I had to learn.” I asked her what changed her taste? She simply replied, “I guess I just grew up.”

People do develop their taste for hoppy beers.   Many are put off by the bitterness of hops at first. After all ours is a culture of sweet. Not bitter.   Exactly not true in, say, Italy. Their culture is accepting of bitter as a deceptively delicious experience. So back to hops and bitterness. My wife is from Brazil. At first she thought the added hop character was a sign of alcohol strength.   Kind of put off at first, but now she is a true hop head, but with a notion of balance, not liking aggressively bitter without malt character.

Yes Chipper LOTS of craft brewers have had their roots in homebrewing. You just need to ask and you shall know. The heart and soul (whoops not sole) is a subjective character that I welcome readers to chime in and define – if you’re in the mood.