One of the pleasures of the stats afforded by WordPress is the list of search terms that lead people to my blog. One caught my eye today: “chunks of stuff in my imported beer”. I was only hours ago having a conversation about chunks of stuff in beer. This is a topic that deserves some discussion. Hopefully the above searcher can find this information helpful.
Beer is life. That is, beer is living. But some brewing companies who-shall-not-be-named repeatedly assault the natural origins of beer. They feel they can turn beer into a commodity, treating their beer like soda pop, expecting to extend “shelf life”. They see this as a matter of economics: the less beer they lose to spoilage the better their margin. However, they forget the time-honored methods of long-term storage of beer – strength, hops, and live yeast. In an effort to make their beers more like water they brew them to low strength with few hops, and go on to filter them crystal clear. As if that wasn’t enough mistreatment, they run the beer through a pasteurizer that raises the temperature to destroy any semblance of life.Don’t get me wrong, the pasteurizer is one of the greatest advancements to food safety, for milk and other foods that spoil. However, the entire reason humanity has brewed beer for millenia is that it is an ideal method of preservation. No known pathogen can survive in beer.
The ancients referred to yeast by the only name they felt gave the phenomenon justice: the single word ‘godisgood’. They appreciated, even with a primitive understanding of science, that the cake of sediment is the secret behind the drink. Strike that, is the drink. Without it we just have sweet water that pretty soon will look and smell foul (not to mention the taste).With it we have majesty. We have the wonder of zymurgy. We have beer. Beer is yeast and yeast is beer. That little sediment at the bottom of craft-brewed beer is the proof that what you hold in your hand is truly natural: the product of a centuries-old collaboration between microorganisms and macroorganisms, between yeastkind and humankind. In the hands of a competent master, those little critters will work wonders.
So getting back to the question that was never specifically asked: it is a good sign if your import (or craft or microbrewed) beer has a layer of sediment on the bottom. In general, chunks of stuff are good. If you prefer, allow your bottles to sit for a few hours and carefully decant into the glass, and you can quite easily leave most of it out.
But in the end must you? There are several reasons I go ahead and drink it anyway. Yeast is incredibly healthful. Witness the prevalence of brewer’s yeast resold in health stores or as a supplement. It is rich in B vitamins (all but B12) and loaded up with protein and a variety of minerals. It adds a lot of body to beer and has a characteristic bready flavor.
That’s why many craft beer drinkers use this method: decant half the beer, drink it. Swirl the rest of the bottle, pour, and drink that. It’s the best of both worlds for a beverage defined by such things.
The Moot Case Against Big Beer
Saturday, March 28th, 2009The Independent today published a scathing analysis of the extreme beer “craze”. Among their points:
Most frustratingly, the article quotes the head brewer of BrewDog saying, “There’s no way someone can drink 20 a night. It’s probably the least economic way of buying alcohol. You can get a bottle of vodka for £5.” Somehow they just ignore this perfectly reasonable, well-articulated point.
Fortunately, there is some rational writing about beer out there as well. For example, that of Pete Brown. His clear, thoughtful, and bulletproof reply includes several important points:
Because it is so eloquent I will just quote entirely the last two bullet points (emphasis mine).
Independent, you just got lawyered.
Also, finally some coverage (warning: website issues) in the “Newspaper Iowa Depends On” of Iowa’s big beer debate. Some background: in Iowa, any beer over 6.25% alcohol is considered liquor. There are three ramifications for this:
The article doesn’t seem to take a position but what do you expect from the Reggie?
Tags: alcohol and health, beer and health, big beer, extreme beer, Strong Beer, The Independent
Posted in Commentary, News, Strong Beer | 1 Comment »