The Whole Package
Last night, I had the pleasure of being “the beer team” in a beer versus wine food matching debate/experience at House in Hamilton. I had the greater pleasure of winning that debate, despite an excellent (and extremely gracious) battle with “the wine team” – Dan Thursby from Hamilton Wine Company.
This was no mean feat, for several reasons. I’ll leave singing my own praises right out of this. I’m not the best public speaker in the world, so I can’t claim I swayed the audience with my shining wit. In fact, if anything, Dan was in fine form, and should perhaps have won on pure debating points alone. He does this sort of thing a lot though, whereas I’m usually limited to rowdy and unwelcome interjections from the sidelines, so I guess he had an edge there. He also claimed the room was stacked with beer friendly people. I felt the opposite was true! Several people I knew as avowed beer drinkers (and close friends) were voting honestly, occasionally putting wine as their preferred match – to my horror! Still, everyone is allowed to be wrong sometimes… I feel that 90% of people present (myself included) voted honestly and without bias. I genuinely believe that beer is a much better match with food than wine, and this proved that point for me because… well… I should have lost.
No, I’m not being self-deprecating here. The primary reason I should have lost was that of the five beers I selected to match the five courses, three were badly flawed. It was only testament to just how effortlessly beer matches food that even with the flaws, the beer and food matches were at worst adequate.
Before I go on, I need to get a few important things out of the way. Firstly, this was not the fault of House, Hamilton Wine Company, or anyone else involved in sourcing the beers. I’ve had this experience many times, with New Zealand craft beer purchased from many different locations. Secondly, this is not a dig at any particular brewer or brewery. I’ve experienced this across the board with almost every craft brewery in New Zealand at some point or another. Even with that said, I’m not posting the menu or selections here (though I was going to), lest people assume that I am saying those particular beers are bad. Far from it. These beers, when fresh, are excellent beverages and do the brewers proud. So please, read this in the spirit it is intended – a starter point for discussion of a problem I believe needs solving urgently. It’s not an attack on anyone.
All three beers which were flawed were in various states of oxidation. One had a huge problem with acetaldehyde (green apple) aroma, and one was little but cardboard and marmitey yeast autolysis flavour. It’s extremely hard to stand in front of a room full of people and wax eloquent about how much better craft beer is than mass produced beer when what’s in your glass almost makes you wish you had a clean BigBrewCo EdgePureLite(tm)(r) instead. Luckily, in all three cases, there was just enough of the original beer character left to create matching magic.
What’s the answer then? I know for a fact that craft brewers are NOT doing it for the money. Most are over-capitalised, under-resourced, and mortgaged to the hilt for their art. They make beer because they love to make beer, not as a method of making money. Buying a really expensive multi-jillion dollar industrial bottling line is far beyond their means.
What else? Bottle conditioning? It certainly does make the beer more robust by maintaining some live yeast in the bottle. That said, it can also result in wildly varying character if not done extremely well. Not everyone feels comfortable with that. Consumers are fickle beasts also, and not many would appreciate having to carefully decant the beer off the yeast. Heaven help the brewer if the punter ends up with yeast in their glass either – “Oi! Wot’s this gunk”? Not that then…
Some form of “brewer’s collective” who purchase fancy bottling lines between them? Nah – you’d still have to transport the beer to the bottling line. Not great for beer. It would just shift the root cause of the problem.
An evolution of the above option would be for contract brewing to play a wider role. Why does every brewer need their own expensive setup? Well, this is closely related to why brewers brew anyway. It’s just not the same to send your recipe off to someone else and hope for the best. Even if you brew it yourself on someone else’s setup, there’s still a feeling that it’s not totally “yours”. So that one’s a maybe, but not likely.
Perhaps then, CAMRA’s LocALE is the answer? Beer is ideally drunk fresh, as close to the brewery as possible. That would be fine if the market were larger and that won’t happen if poor condition beers are used to attempt to grow it. Chicken and egg, or longterm solution?
What else is there? I don’t know, but as someone who spends a lot of time trying to promote craft beer, and really wants this problem solved, I’d love to hear some suggestions. Please, by all means, discuss!
The best brewers will improve their bottling process and survive… simple as that. Could have come out of your own Liberterian brain.
I’m sure you know by now that I completely disagree with the “fresh is best” bullshit. it is made up by brewers/marketers who are trying to capture and brainwash their local market. Best is best!! I would have never realised this until we started Yeastie Boys… I can tell you right now that every single beer we have made, besides one, was better when (or just after) it ran out for the public than when it was released. True, most “real” breweries/brewers do not face this problem but the statement is one I definitely have a problem with… especially for NZ craft beers which tend to hang in the vicinity of 4.5% to 6%. Do you think English brewers think ESB’s are best fresh? I’ve heard of so many people who wouldn’t drink a beer if it had only been tapped that day.
Ok, that is part one of my reply… more to come.
Comment by Stu — June 10, 2010 @ 7:38 pm
Oh come on man, name names!
I haven’t had too many issues – mainly a couple of skunked bottles. Some beers are definitely much better fresh from the keg.
I’d quite like to see NZ brewers to embrace canning like they have in the US. I think this would have positives on freshness, keeping transport costs down and of course, we could then buy more of our favourites in six packs.
Comment by Christian — June 10, 2010 @ 7:46 pm
Stu, my opinion on freshness is that it really depends of the hop and malt profile of the beer. I’m amazed at some of the fresh hop cahracter you get in home brew but it tends to dissapear or change very quickly, often before the rest of the beer has conditioned. Shame really.
Comment by Christian — June 10, 2010 @ 7:59 pm
Christian: Sorry, as I said, I’ve had bad bottled beers from almost every NZ craft brewer at some point in the past. I don’t see the point in “naming and shaming”, as this isn’t intended to pick on any one brewery. It’s intended to get people discussing the cause of and solutions to this problem.
Canning is a good idea! I know there are some logistical issues (minimum purchase of cans, cost of canning lines) but hey, the idea is to talk about options.
Stu: I’ve had bad bottles of YB beers too you know!
Also, libertarianism doesn’t mean wanting to see brewers fail. There’s nothing conflicting about wanting ALL the brewers to succeed! Libertarianism is a win/win philosophy! That’s not to say there aren’t losers, just that it’s not in my interest as a consumer for any of these great breweries to fail, though it may be in the interests of some of the breweries… 
I respect that you disagree with fresh is best, but I honestly think that it holds as a general rule. Perhaps your beers (and of course, some others, as you cite) are exceptions, but like yourself I’ve tasted a lot of beers… I think you might not be being totally honest with yourself if you’re really saying that in general, most beers are not better when fresh? Even English ESBs (on cask) are better fresh! Oxidation is not a good thing in general, and *never* a good thing in large doses.
Comment by greig — June 10, 2010 @ 9:59 pm
I was there, I know the beers (no, I’m not naming and shaming either) and I was one of the ‘beer friendly’ people that voted for wine! (well OK it was only once but he did get me on one of the best NZ produced Chardonnay’s I have ever tried!). All I can say is that the breweries in question should know better! And while I agree with Stu that ‘best is best’ I also agree with Greig that ‘fresh is best’. Why? Well because as soon as the beer leaves the brewery the control of that beer leaves the brewers hands. Yes, there are ways to control that too but i’m not going into that. However, with the ‘flawed’ beers we tried I do question whether they left the brewery in good shape and just got worse with distribution (ducking for cover!). Is canning the answer? well not from the ‘craft’ canning lines that i recently looked at, and these were produced at a reasonable price for small breweries. And affordable bottling lines are just not sophisticated enough. So my answer – produce a well made and ‘stable’ beer (yes there are products out there that will improve shelf life – you just have to get over the ‘real/natutral beer’ image!), package with a bit of TLC (unsophisticated doesnt necessarily mean it wont work well, a bit of skill is required as well), choose distributors that will look after your product but most of all if you want it tasting best, drink it at the brewery!
Comment by Graeme — June 11, 2010 @ 8:28 am
Bad bottles of Yeastie Boys… Why’d you not tell me?
I was in Australia recently and found that (on the whole) the tap beer was ok-to-excellent and the bottled beer (besides one or two) ranged from awful to not very good. It’s certainly not just a New Zealand problem. I’d be surprised if it is not the same in America. Mountain Goat are brewing their keg beer (and limited release 650ml bottles) at their own Richmond brewery and have all the 330ml bottles contract brewed elsewhere. I didn’t try any of the contract brewed ones so I’m not sure what the quality of the contract brewing is but there are benefits and risks in that model.
Graeme’s comments are generally on the track that I’d agree with… but his opinion about “fresh is best” is wrong. The misinformation of your (and your readers) wrong opinions really annoys me. I might have to ask for this blog to be blocked by the DIA internet filter. Would you mind?
Cheers
Stu
Comment by Stu — June 11, 2010 @ 11:43 am
Mind? I think its the only prudent course of action! Ban it!
As for the bad YB beers, I was pretty sure I did tell you – at the RCC thingy, with one of the Nerdherders having some oxidation issues?
Yeah, I agree it’s not limited to NZ. No reason we shouldn’t try to solve it here though!
Also… NO, U!
Comment by greig — June 11, 2010 @ 11:51 am
Wrong..?? Me..?? Well not that often
Although I must clarify. First comes ‘best is best’ as if it aint good fresh its never going to be! Then I should have added ‘fresh is generally best’. I would rather have a good AIPA directly out of the bright tank than after 6 months sitting on the shelf, even if it has been bottled with some hi-tech bottling/canning line! However, as you pointed out, many other beers ‘can’ improve with age….but thats another discussion when I have more time (you should get a later flight next time!) to sit down and have a beer with you, Stu…
Comment by Graeme — June 11, 2010 @ 12:41 pm
The problem is always going to be in distribution, in my opinion – how the beer is treated after it leaves the brewery ultimately makes a huge difference to consistency. A brewer can control the process pretty tightly during production, but once it’s out there on a truck it’s no longer up to him.
Big brewers are much better set up (resourced) to deal with this issue, hence why pretty much every bottle/pint of Steinlager Pure you have will be identical to every other. The first craft brewer to get either of the big two to contract brew for them and allow them to use their distribution chain will own the market. The challenge then will be keeping their soul, as Macs and Monteiths well know.
Comment by Paul — June 15, 2010 @ 1:21 pm