Subject: Digest for the period 8/7/2007 - 8/8/2007 Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 01:00:15 -0400 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Making it real (Peed, John) 2. Re: "Real" beer (swihart) 3. Re: "Real" beer (Tom Schmidlin) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peed, John Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 09:33:28 -0700 Subject: Making it real Tom's suggestion to drop the word "real" makes sense to me. It sounds full of implications, none of which make a lot of sense to me. BTW, after yesterday's brew session in the screaming hot sun (and several quarts of water), I cast about for a beer to celebrate the end of the session. I found a Bud tall boy buried in the vegetable crisper, along with a few other "beers for general company" and gave it a try. Gotta say, that beer was as real as it gets under the circumstances, and it was "real good". John Peed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: swihart Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 09:06:39 -0400 Subject: Re: "Real" beer robert paolino wrote: > No, I'm not bothered by using the "real beer" terminology at all, and > especially not in the context of the other two elements of the stated > purpose: > > 1) to promote beer literacy and > 2) appreciation of real beer > 3) to recognize beer tasting and evaluation skills. Gotta say yes, me too, agreement. "Real" works and something besides just "beer" is necessary. Oh man Bob you do ramble on, but it's pretty much all good, and plenty is *quite* good, interesting, fun. > .....Mega swillseners/nilseners are marketed with > "lifestyle" images and consumed largely as "alcohol-delivery systems." ...... >...I know it sounds awfully "incorrect" to express this, but a > lot of people really do want to drink to get a little (or a lot of) buzz > without having to taste very much. It looks even worse since I snipped away so much of your context, but it sounds AWFULLY "CORRECT" to me. This is one of the main reasons that the "real beer" or "craft beer" or however-we-distinguish-it distinction is important. The word "appreciation" almost does what is needed, but not quite. Serious beer education seems to cut into this syndrome, swaying some people from the pound-it-down approach to consuming beer and converting them to genuine lovers of the sensory delights it offers. It's not hard to get people interested in learning about beer, and then beer suddenly becomes interesting to them, not just a tasteless as possible alcohol delivery system. People discover there are flavors and aromas to spend some time on, enjoyment besides the buzz, a reason to savor instead of hammer. This can be mighty important in a college town and in fact everywhere young people are living away from home for the first years.... IMO. It might be slightly evil to encourage beer snobbery for any reason, but if it helps in any way to combat the binge drinking problem that exists in some quarters, well, I'm all for teaching/encouraging a little beer snobbery. > Anyway, time for me to ... back to ... completing one of my parts of our own little > bit of beer education for next Saturday's celebration and appreciation > of 108 brewers and 500+ beers to be presented to some 5,000 very happy > people. Have a Great Taste, Bob and all who've worked hard to put it together! I'm sure it will be, as always, amazing. Linda ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Schmidlin Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 10:42:43 -0800 Subject: Re: "Real" beer Tobey, I saw your message - check though your old emails. Bob, thanks for your thoughts, I'd like to hear from some others as well. I've edited your comments for length below and added some of my own, so I apologize in advance if I unintentionally take your thoughts out of context. I think I understand what you're saying, but I disagree. >Although we do have a category for the styles exemplified by the major products of A-B, SABMiller, >MolsonCoors, et cetera, the category is acknowledged because they are fermented grain products with >at least some grain character (to be distinguished from alcopops, which are malt-based but only as a >cheap and lower-taxed way to produce a colourless/flavourless alcohol to which other flavours can be >added) and can be evaluated for their technical characteristics. (OTOH, if I never had to judge >another standard/premium American lager, I wouldn't be heartbroken. And admit it, 90+% of you prefer >not to do them either ;-) ) That may be the case for you, but I would much rather judge light lagers than American wheats. And I know good beer people who can't stand barleywine or lambic, as shocking as that may seem. Anyone's preference for a style should not play into the purpose of the BJCP, just as it should not affect judging. >But from a cultural perspective, these products ARE different from what most of us in this group think >of as "beer," not only in the flavour characteristics (very low malt, very low hops...), but in how >they are marketed/promoted. Mega swillseners/nilseners are marketed with "lifestyle" images and >consumed largely as "alcohol-delivery systems." Should any brewery's marketing scheme be relevant to the purpose of the BJCP? >It's that diversity of styles and flavours where the beer literacy and beer appreciation comes in- >-that "beer" is not a largely uniform WonderBread/Velveeta product with as little flavour as >possible. We're trying to educate people that "beer" means a lot more than what is mass-marketed out >there. Right, beer DOES mean a lot more than that, but it doesn't exclude it. I have no issue with the purpose of the BJCP as it relates to literacy, education, recognizing skills or beer appreciation. Only when we say "REAL beer" does it bug me. I think the use of the phrase "real beer" is a good example of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. It's beer, but it's not REAL beer. >Beer literacy implies an educational function (to a broader public), as do evaluation skills (primarily >of judges, but also something of a more public educational function). When we say "real" beer, we are >speaking of products that exhibit a wide range of variety, that showcase rather than hide the >characteristics of the ingredients, and that are appreciated as legitimate food products rather than a >"lifestyle" image and a buzz (not that there aren't images connoted by craft beer marketing, too, but >one that will include the idea that the beer tastes like something other than "mountain spring water." So you are saaying that mass lagers are not real beer, and I disagree. They may not be my favorite, but they are still beer and they are definitely real. >We have this fantastic variety of beer in North America today *because* people recognised that there is >a difference between real beer and the increasingly bland and indistinct crap the mass-market guys were >selling and their approach to selling it. We have this diversity of beers because people wanted better beer, beer with more flavor, variety. People recognized that there was more that was possible, and they wanted it. But I still disagree with the sentiment that the way a beer is marketed should have any effect on the purpose of the BJCP, or whether that beer is considred "real" or not. What if Sierra Nevada started advertising their Pale Ale with a bikini team of their own, would that then cease to be a real beer? Consider: The purpose of the BJCP is to promote beer literacy and apprecition, and to recognize beer tasting and evaluation skills. Doesn't that say everything that needs to be said without artificially excluding a beverage for no reason other than low flavor or how it is marketed? Some other possible changes to the purpose that might get the point across without using the word real: Appreciation of diverse beer Appreciation of all beer Appreciation of craft beer Or how about this :) 1) to promote real beer literacy and 2) appreciation of real beer 3) to recognize real beer tasting and evaluation skills Thanks for reading this far, Tom Schmidlin ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Important Subscriber Information ***** To post a message to JudgeNet, send it to judge`at`synchro.com. Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments. Make sure you use a meaningful subject. Quote only as much material as is needed for context. 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