Lager lovers of the world unite

Posted on July 2, 2009 by Andrew

Jeff Pickthall loves lager. Bless ‘im. And he’s written a post to celebrate the fact over at his “It’s just the beer talking” blog.

And he’s not the only one. I think it is fair to say that there have been quite a few bloggers recently who have come out and defended the style. And its important to note that it is the style that is being praised.

When I hear any variation on the phrase “the war against lager”, I think “this person doesn’t actually care about beer.”

That’s a position I support 110%.

I’ve been in the lucky position over the last few weeks to taste a good few beers and write about them for a book called “1001 beers you must try before you die”. As the name suggests, the emphasis was on remarkable beers – big hops, big taste, big abvs. There were many wild and wonderful brews among them. But now I’ve come to an end of the writing I find myself taking a break with lagers. Besides the technically competent, but not really ‘remarkable’ Carlsberg and Tuborg, I’ve had a dabble at Nørrebro Bryghusets’ New York Lager, which is fantastic.

To my mind the reason people are beginning to defend lager is twofold: there’s only so much Double Imperial Super IPA you can drink, and because lagers are getting better. Its noticeable that brewers are looking for new challenges and, ironically, lager might be the new frontier.

Posted in Beer, Lager, Lager loathing | 1 Comment

Cheers to the lager drinking Michael Jackson

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Andrew

I’ve been casting around the internet trying to find various sources for some reviews I’m writing for a new beer book and came across a wonderful video interview with the late great Michael Jackson over at Sheltonbrothers.com.

I spoke to and met Michael on several occasions and despite him being rather disparaging about commercial lagers in his writing, his view and knowledge was far more nuanced than you would think.

My first experience was when I’d been in Carlsberg for only a few months when I intercepted a phone call destined for someone else and on the end was a rather confused marketing person who had been told that the great Michael Jackson was turning up at the brewery that day and they didn’t know what to do with him. They were a little bit uncertain because the last time they had spoken to him he was researching beer for one of his books and was refusing to put Carlsberg Pilsner in because it wasn’t interesting enough. They in return were refusing to help with information on any of the other beers Carlsberg make.

Not marketing

In his usual forthright Yorkshire manner he’d told them that he didn’t want to speak to anybody in Marketing, he wanted to speak to someone who knew about beer (he told me later on the phone). A few frantic phone calls later we managed to get him hooked up with Anders Kissmeyer, who later left Carlsberg to found one of the first microbreweries in Denmark, and they spent an evening talking about beer.

He also came away with an appreciation of Carlsberg 47, the Vienna style lager that Carlsberg started producing in  1972 to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the founding of the  brewery in 1847 . We managed to set him up with a container load for his US-based beer club.

The second time I met him was because I’d organised a yeast seminar for the British Guild of Beer Writers in Brewers’ Hall in London. We had Michael to give an introduction to the topic and then a more detailed lecture by the head of the Carlsberg Yeast Genetics department. He then very kindly invited us out for a meal at Belgo and we spent a fascinating evening with stories and recollections about beer and journalism.

The video by the Shelton Brothers brought all that back. So as I sit here and fight my way through several excellent Danish and Norwegian microbrews, I can’t help but raise a glass to the man who did more than anything else to get things moving.

Posted in Beer, Marketing | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Balancing a one-sided view of brewing history

Posted on June 9, 2009 by Andrew
From The Scotsman, February 1870. Showing that Carlsberg was not only exported to Scotland, it was also sold there.

From The Scotsman, February 1870. Showing that Carlsberg was not only exported to Scotland, it was also sold there.

If history is written by the victors, then beer history is written by the exporters. That’s what came to me while reading the excellent ‘Hops and Glory’ written by Pete Brown.

Pete has done a sterling job by digging deep into the history of IPA to reveal a depth and richness that has been lacking in beer writing, instead of relying on the same old repeated stories that haven’t really much basis in truth.

Brewing until very recently has been a national industry that became international in scope, without becoming international in mindset. There has been so much focus on the beer leaving a country that no-one seems to have picked up the story of it arriving in a country. ‘Look,’ they say. ‘See how much beer we’ve sent overseas. Aren’t we good?’

The main reason is that for too many years brewers were just that – brewers. They made the stuff but didn’t waste too much time on the bothersome task of sales, marketing and distribution. That was outsourced to locals, leaving the brewers as the captains of industry, the heroes.
That means the history of brewing is skewed to big countries like the UK, US and Germany, who had huge home markets to supply, leading to a overtly national focus. While in the smaller countries like Holland and Denmark, the heroes are the brewers who produced a lot of beer for export. In both cases there isn’t much information on what happened to the beer when it got to its destination.

A case in point – Carlsberg. Carlsberg started exporting to Scotland in 1868/69 (depending on what you consider as an export -a couple of cases or a ship load). There is very little written about what happened to Captain Jacobsen’s beer once it arrived on the dockside at Leith apart from an advert in The Scotsman in February 1870 and a few scattered references to other distributors.

And that’s just Carlsberg. What about other foreign beers like Becks, Holsten and Heineken? There are loads of good stories out there just waiting to jump out.

Posted in Beer, Brewing history, Lager | Tagged , | Comments Off on Balancing a one-sided view of brewing history