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Spiking Beer: As Intended, As Brewed?

May 5, 2015 · by Oliver Gray

If the gadgets popping up in the beer world are representative of some growing trend, drinkers harbor a strange desire to “change” the beer they’re drinking. “Change” is usually couched cozily in “enhance” but this time around, I can’t help but read it as “mess with a good thing.”

I suppose modifying already brewed beer started with Dogfish Head’s Randall, a device you pass your beer through to infuse it with the matter you’ve managed to mash into the plastic chamber – coffee beans, fresh herbs, Fruit Loops, Oreos – whatever your depraved, drunken mind can think of. Although some might argue it’s just a product of American cross cultural contamination, the Randall (and it’s home-based Jr. version) might have been the lead catalysts in spawning the “dump random crap in your casks” craze that plagues perfectly good beer engines across the country. Thanks, Sam.

And then came Synek, the “beer Keurig” wanting to change how growlers worked, and how you drink beer at home. Then that baffling OnTap flavor enhancing goo, which we’d all do our best to forget. Then, as if we hadn’t had enough, came Fizzics, a bizarre device with a micro-filter that’s supposed to provide a much better head on your beer. And now we’ve got Hop Theory Sachets, basically tea bags full of hops and other dried ingredients, meant to “improve” your drinking experience with some post-brew modification.

Cool!

I guess.

Right?

Like, it’s cool we have options and can spend a bunch of money and wile away out leisure hours spiking beer with random stuff. Variety is the spice of life, and we’ve certainly got some potent spices to work with these days. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve quite enjoyed some augmented cask beers, even some totally not beer-ish ones like gold ale with orange peel and vanilla. I’d be hypocritical to not agree that the novelty of these gadgets makes for a fun little Saturday after you’re done at Home Depot.

I do get the appeal; brewing is a remote mountain many can’t or won’t climb, and these devices put some control back into the hands of the consumer. But, cultural industry announcement! The consumer is not the brewmaster. No matter how many Reddit articles they’ve read, or how many unique check-ins on UnTappd. I don’t want the norm to slowly be ok with changing beer that’s already finished. Therein lies the less favorable rub of gadgetry; every single one of these devices, despite a positive message of gustatory freedom, carries with it a secret. An encrypted code deeper and more important than just, “change your beer!”

All of these devices suggest that beer fundamentally should be changed – and by the consumer no less! – a concept I find insulting to brewers, and disconnecting for drinkers.

Beer isn’t always perfect. Any homebrewer can tell you some diacetyl laced horror stories. The problems aren’t automatically fixed when scaled up to multiple BBLs either. We’ve got quality assurance and consistency issues in a lot of start-up breweries. A lot of beer coming out of the fledgling “craft” movement sings a song of avoidable defects. There are some beers that downright lack, that need all the help they can get to not scorch or sting the palate.

Acknowledged, appreciated, archived.

That still doesn’t mean we, as consumers, should be willing to or responsible for somehow righting brewhouse wrongs.

Brewing is science wrapped in art. The equipment must be cleaned and the temperatures must be monitored, but the amount and type of malts and hops, and ultimately the flavor of the beers, are up to the brewer’s discretion. Like a chef, the oven and the pans are standard; the ingredients and processes where they create signature tastes. Even the worst production beer is the result of a planned recipe, an entire brew cycle, someone’s missed vision. To brew beer is a difficult labor of love; failures in the brewhouse mean missed intentions, not opportunities to perform first aid.

And that presumes these devices are intentionally marketed at poorly made beer, which I’ll argue they’re not. They’re marketed at all beer, including world class examples of styles. Some of these will be used in or on beer that is already delicious and on-point, already a manifestation of the brewer’s will and skill. To pass even a mainline, year-round beer from an award winning brewery through some random device is to suggest you know better than the brewer when it comes to the flavor of the beer. Unless of course you are a trained brewmaster. Then I guess by all means you crazy bastard.

I know, I know, I sound like a purist beer regressivist, decrying innovation because it’s scary and new. But you don’t take your own sauces and spices to a restaurant, ready to add them to a chef’s dish just because you think you can make it better. Part of paying for a product is accepting that it is packaged how the manufacturer intended it should be. When you pay for a beer, you’re paying for the the expertise, training, and creativity of the brewer, not just the liquid itself. Many brewers have formal educations or have spent years apprenticing to be able to bring you delectable decoctions of fermented flavor, and you should appreciate that every time your pop a top or slip a sip.

If you really must channel your inner Warhol by trying to elevate the existing, I’m not one to stop you. Just make sure you’ve tasted the beer as it is supposed to be, as the brewer wanted you to taste it, well before you introduce it to any gadget de l’amélioration. Drink beer as beer is, as it has evolved from years of trial and error, as the yeast made it through vigorous bubbly labor. You’ll be a better beer citizen, and brewers will thank you for taking the time to appreciate their art.

Left yes, right no.

The New Yorker “Beer” Cover – What We’re Missing in de Seve’s Message

October 29, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

This graphic bounced its way around Twitter like a drunken hummingbird yesterday, dragging behind it a whole cacophony of commentary about what the illustration implied about beer culture. Admittedly, my first reaction fell in the blast-zone of “defensive indignation” as I viewed the cover as a slight to anyone who had migrated from domestic macro to domestic craft, a bit of high brow mockery that screamed “unfair.” I ran around perpetuating that idea all day, hoping with an odd, maternal instinct, to protect the industry and people I’d grown to love from potential harm.

It took Matt LaFleur (the artist who designed and drew my blog logo) to point out that this illustration was the work of Peter de Sève, a long time cover-artist for the New Yorker. In my ignorance of all things good, I’d never heard of him until yesterday. I had no idea that this satirical, hyberbolized style was a defining element of his work, and that this cover is part of a bigger trend he has for creating butting narratives and social commentary about New York City in a single drawing. The problem here was not with the art itself, or de Sève’s intentions, but in my woefully inaccurate interpretation of his intentions.

There seemed to be just as many pro-fermentation people who considered this a positive cover; that if a publication as prestigious and established as the New Yorker would feature beer on its cover, it officially meant that craft beer had “made it.” I think you don’t need to look very far past the economic outlook of beer to see “made it” painted in rising black lines on sheets of green, but I get where they’re coming from.

My concern is that both gut reactions seem to miss the bigger point. I deeply respect illustrators partly because I don’t have a single atom of illustrative talent in my body, partly because of their ability to weave a complex narrative into their lines and colors, all within the confines of eight and a half by eleven. Peter de Sève isn’t just an artist who draws for the New Yorker who wanted to do a “beer cover” because it was trendy. He’s a storyteller, touching on how beer is evolving in his city, and in turn, the country.

It’s a tad incongruent that the story of rising appreciation for beer (and with it rising snobbery about beer) was sort of lost in the tribal division of whether it was “good” or “bad” as a message about the subculture, because said subculture is always clamoring for more stories that dig deeper, tell more, expose some truth. Well here is it! Right there on the cover of the New Yorker. A complete story about where craft beer stands today, in all its dual and polarizing glory. De Sève has managed to both give beer a boost up onto the saddle with wine by direct comparison of behavior, and give it a somewhat deserving sucker punch in its bearded, snobby jaw. It’s as well done a story about beer as I’ve read (or seen) in a long time, and I think that’s what we need to take away from this cover, not some selfish stance on what it means for beer people or the community.

The reality is that many outside the scene do see craft beer people as snobs; at best dismissive and close-minded about anything beyond their preference, at worst pedantic assholes who make sweeping judgments about whole groups of people based on something as metaphysically hollow as beer. I know, I know. It’s not all of us. It might not even be many of us. But it’s some of us, enough of us to have a “Tea Partiers on the Republicans” style effect of painting the whole group with one big, broad brush stroke of unfair social placement. And I’m here to remind everyone that there’s next to nothing any of us can do about it, other than not be snobs and scenesters ourselves in hopes that over time, public opinion will swing back to something more acceptingly benign.

If you dig into de Sève’s other works, you’ll find that he’s a master of the social joke, at poking fun while also forcing some serious questions to the surface of the narrative. The health consciousness of this lion could be a jab at trendy vegan/vegetarianism, or a subtle nod that maybe all of us, even the career carnivores, should probably eat a little better. The beer cover does the same. Our foreground character is a black woman, subtly touching on both the lack of gender and racial diversity in beer. The server is a stereotype, but an apt one, one we all know very well from our local taproom on a Friday night. The drinker himself may be a microcosm of what the “beer guy” looks like from the outside of the beer world, a snapshot looking in, that we should all sort of look at and say, “huh, yea, maybe.”

So appreciate that de Sève has taken such an interest, and given us all this reflective opportunity. The accompanying story to this cover closes with, “It’s an unprecedentedly excellent time to drink beer in Brooklyn, as the cover suggests.” I don’t think the cover suggests that. I think it suggests a whole lot more.

For anyone interested, here’s some more of de Sève’s New Yorker covers (for storytelling reference):

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Logos, Labels, and Lego – 15 Questions with Artist and Illustrator, Matthew LaFleur

March 24, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

Confession time: I’ve always irrationally loved logos. I stare at and analyze them, wondering why certain geometric decisions were made, debating how much thought and effort and money went into the design. My inner wizard knows that there is latent power in an energetic swoosh, or a colored jumble of Catull letters, or a piece of fruit with a bite taken out of it. A logo is a microcosm; all the people, all the knowledge, the entire identity of a company or brand squished and squeezed and condensed down into its most simply recognizable form.

I first ran into Matt(hew) LaFleur on Twitter, one lazy Thursday evening during #beerchat. His handle, @DoodleMatt, caught my eye first, but his unique drawings quickly pulled my gaze another direction. I’m a decidedly terrible illustrator despite years of mid-meeting practice, and I’m always enamored by the skill of people who can create beautiful things with little more than paper, pens, pencils, and patience.

I followed Matt’s doodle blog for a while, not-so-secretly admiring his work. After seeing Matt’s unique takes on classic movie monsters, the clever whimsy of his Western-inspired sea creatures, and discovering that he designs and draws labels for his homebrew, I knew he was the right person to ask to design a new logo for Literature and Libation.

Slight issue: I have no idea how to design a logo. When Matt asked me what I was looking for, all I could say was, “I like antiques” which is about as helpful as saying “I like turtles.” I knew I wanted something but had no specifics about the some and only vague ideas as to the thing.

Fortunately Matt is wildly more professional that I am, and after a few emails back and forth he suggested I send him some photographs of the elements I had in mind.

This is what I sent:

A ruined archway in Cashel, Ireland; A-style mandolin blueprints; the inside of an old pocket watch

Apparently (amazingly) this was enough to give Matt some ideas, and he quickly came back to me with a sketch of his design concept:

When I saw this for the first time, hanging out mid-conversation in my Gmail, I was convinced that Matt had somehow reached into the squishiest parts of my brain and pulled out exactly what I had been unable to find in my own mind. His superpowers affirmed, I signed off on the final, and here it is now in all its glory, making my corner of the internet look oh so much better.

Old and New

I didn’t want our exchange to end there, so I decided to get to know Matt a little better using my preferred method: asking silly questions.

1. I’ve already quasi-introduced you, but can you tell us a little bit about your artistic background?

I cannot remember a time that I wasn’t drawing. I was a child of the eighties, so I drew many, many pictures of Pac-Man and ghost war zones. I thought Garfield was hilarious (hey, I was young and stupid) and I used to trace and then draw the namesake, and Odie, all of the time. It wasn’t until a kid moved into the house across the street and introduced me to comic books that I saw what illustration really was. But most of my art was funny, character-driven stuff. I went to Syracuse University and received a BFA in Illustration. Their illustration program, as well as their basketball team, are incredible.

2. When someone commissions a piece from you, how you go about conceptualizing/capturing what the client wants?

It depends on the type and delivery method of the finished illustration. Sometimes I’m told pretty much exactly what to draw. Other times I’m let loose. It takes a boatload of research, first of all. Lots of sketching. Adding a bunch of stuff to the art, then stripping a bunch of stuff away. In the end, it’s a gut thing, with a healthy does of letting the pencil go where it wants to go. How’s that for ambiguous?

3. What design software do you love to hate, or hate to love?

I love to hate Adobe Illustrator. I know, ironic, right? I just can’t stand coloring by shapes, gradients. For me, there’s no spontaneity. I’ve seen amazing work in AI, but I can’t swing it. Someone says “Can you provide an AI or EPS file?” and I break out in hives.

4. You draw label art for your homebrew, and designed a label for Middle Brow Beer; any plans to design for other breweries?

Soon, Arcade Brewery here in Chicago will release their first public brew, a scotch ale. They had a naming contest on Facebook, and the winner came up with “William Wallace Wrestle Fest.” Part two was a contest to design the label art. At the 11th hour I had an idea, submitted it, and was named a finalist. I won, up against 3 other sweet submissions. I’ve gotten to know the Arcade guys pretty well, and I’m anxious to see these beers on the shelves. There are a couple other things in the works. One is still up for grabs, so I’m waiting if I get the call. It will involve a huge museum, a big illinois brewery, and a giant among Chicago chefs. Fingers crossed.

Not a label, but another was a tshirt design for a collaboration of Burgers and Beers from Chicago mainstays Kuma’s Corner (burgers), DryHop Brewers (beers), and the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild. They wanted artwork that incorporated the logos of all three. We came with the idea of a giant bear rampaging through downtown Chicago… hard to pass that up.

5. If you could redesign the label of any commercial beer out there, what would you pick?

I have illustrated many labels for my homebrew, as well as a couple commercial ones. I know how hard it is to come up a label design, but I haven’t had to think too much about the face of a long line of bottles at a store. While there have been more than a few that I personally didn’t like, you have to admit that they sometimes really stand out on a shelf. Like the beer inside, the art outside is a subjective thing. Not everybody is going to dig it. But the brewery loves it.

6. Are there any surprising limitations (other than size) when designing bottle labels?

The curvature of the bottle was something I didn’t account for when designing and illustrating labels. The art has to be visible without someone having to rotate the bottle.

7. Who is your favorite Disney Princess, and why?

Ooh, you go right for the jugular, Oliver. Can I say Jessica Rabbit? I really like the recent heroines: Merida from Brave, Anna & Elsa from Frozen, even Rapunzel. Tough and flawed. Old school princess fave would have to be Belle. Smart, unselfish, and ready to fight wolves. Goes toe to toe with giant, angry beast thing. Brunette.

8. If I came over to your house on an average Saturday afternoon, what would you be doing?

Well, I probably wouldn’t be there. I’d be at my eldest daughter’s cello group class. Truth. Juggling a 9 to 5, freelance illustration, and family is something I’m still trying to figure out. If I wasn’t at the class, I might be at the drafting table, with my two daughters in the room doing crafts, drawing, or coloring one of my black and white illustrations in Photoshop.

9. If your life – as it is right now – was turned into a LEGO set, what would it look like?

It would probably be the lamest LEGO set ever.

LaFleur Minifigs sold separately.

10. If you developed a weird, selective allergy and were only allowed to drink one style of beer for the rest of your life, what style would you pick?

As trite as it may sound, I’d have to go with IPA. Session, imperial, double, black, rye, Belgo, I’ll take ’em all. November rolls around and I’m ready for stouts and heavier stuff, but then the February sun comes up and I’m enjoying IPAs. Once you get hooked on them, everything else pales (see what I did there?)

11. Mac or PC or Linux or something else I’m not aware of?

Mac. Since 1992.

12. How do you feel about No.2 Pencils?

Dark enough to make a good mark, hard enough to keep a decent point for a good 5-7 minutes. Good for testing. I prefer a softer, darker lead, though.

13. What’s the oddest thing anyone has ever asked you to draw?

“What I’m looking to do, is have [an old timey] bike being towed with a rope by a boy with a deer skull head.” I really liked how this piece turned out, but I was really clueless about how it was going to look.

14. What is the answer to life the universe and everything?

42.

Did I win?

Seriously, do something that truly makes you happy, and do it forever. If you love what you do, then you’ll never have to work a day in your life. Money is great. Happiness can’t be bought.

15. Where can everyone find you and your work?

Thank you so much for this opportunity to talk about something I love to talk about. Myself! No, I mean making art for a living. You can find me all over the iPlace. If there’s a social media, I’m there. Instagram. Twitter. Facebook. Pinterest (great for research and inspiration). My website is lafleurillustration.com. I also have an infrequently updated doodle blog.

Announcement – The Session #84: “Alternative” Reviews

January 9, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry. Rebecca, of the great blog The Bake and Brew, hosted the 83rd session which was a spirited discussion on popular beer and community hype. You should check it out!

We, as beer bloggers, tend to get caught up in this beer appreciation thing, forever chasing an invisible dragon of taste, doing our best to catalog our experiences on the page or in a database. We get obsessed with the idea of quantifying our experience – either so we can remember specifics ad infinitum or use the data as a point of comparison for other beers – and often forget that beer is just as much art and entertainment as it is critic-worthy foodstuff.

So for my turn hosting The Session, I ask all of you to review a beer. Any beer. Of your choosing even! There’s a catch though, just one eentsy, tiny rule that you have to adhere to: you cannot review the beer.

I know it sounds like the yeast finally got to my brain, but hear me out: I mean that you can’t write about SRM color, or mouthfeel, or head retention. Absolutely no discussion of malt backbones or hop profiles allowed. Lacing and aroma descriptions are right out. Don’t even think about rating the beer out of ten possible points.

But, to balance that, you can literally do anything else you want. I mean it. Go beernuts. Uncap your muse and let the beer guide your creativity.

I want to see something that lets me know what you thought of the beer (good or bad!) without explicitly telling me. Write a short story that incorporates the name, an essay based on an experience you had drinking it, or a silly set of pastoral sonnets expressing your undying love for a certain beer. If you don’t feel like writing, that’s fine; plug into your inner Springsteen and play us a song, or throw your budding Van Gogh against the canvas and paint us a bubbly masterpiece. Go Spielberg, go Seinfeld, go (if you must) Lady Gaga. Show me the beer and how it made you feel, in whatever way strikes you most appropriate.

Was there something you always want to try or write, but were afraid of the reception it might receive? This is your chance. A no judgement zone. I encourage everyone who sees this to join in, even if you don’t normally participate in The Session, or aren’t even a beer blogger. This is an Equal Creation Opportunity. All I ask is that you not be vulgar or offensive, since this blog is officially rated PG-13.

My goal is to push you out of your default mode, to send you off to explore realms outside of the usual and obvious. I want you to create something inspired by beer without having to worry about the minutiae of the beer itself. Don’t obsess over the details of the recipe, just revel in the fact that you live in a place where you have the luxury of indulging in such beautiful decadence.

Post your responses in the comments of this post on Friday, February 7th, or tweet them to @OliverJGray. I’ll do a round up on the 14th so if you’re a little less than punctual, no worries.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what everyone creates. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in the comments, on Twitter, or at literatureandlibation at-sign google mail dot com.

“Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.” -Petrarch

Session #83 – Against the Grain

January 3, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

Leading the charge into a beery 2014, this month’s session is hosted by Rebecca over at The Bake and Brew. The topic? “Against the Grain – How much is our taste or opinion of a craft beer affected by what friends and the craft beer community at large thinks?”

The American craft beer community owes Herman Melville’s estate some serious royalties. Beer drinkers have, with the help of limited regional distribution and internet hysteria, revitalized the idea of the phantasmagorical white whale, resurrected the self inflicted psychological torment that comes from bending one’s mind and will to a singular, oft unattainable pursuit.

I’m talking Pliny the Elder. Heady Topper. Bourbon County Brand Stout. Those highly rated, near flawless, crafted wonders by which the quality of the rest of the culture is measured. Beers made elusive by design. The bottled and canned Pollacks and Picassos. Works of art that somehow, through the neural network of the collective unconscious, most drinkers can objectively identify as “great,” even if they’ve never actually tried it.

They’re out there, lurking below the surface, dodging whaler’s harpoons, appearing for a few seconds to those lucky few, disappearing just as quickly for anyone actively looking for them. They’re evil only in that they won’t play nice, that they won’t just show up on the shelf in our local beer store at a reasonable price, whenever we want them.

We know the hype for these beers exists. We’ve all seen it on Twitter, or in magazine features, or as a that shining perfect 100% gracing BeerAdvocate or RateBeer. But the question Rebecca asks is simple: does hype represent reality? Are our brains pre-wired to assume rare and expensive means good? Is it possible that we’re psyching ourselves up and in turn perceiving the beer to be better than it really is?

Subjectivity swims in everything we eat and drink. Everyone’s tongue is a slightly different patterned plot of budded farmland, harvesting different kinds of flavors in different yields, ultimately resulting in what we understand as taste. Our noses, too, make unreliable organs of comparison, as we’re all dealt a different olfactory hand at the beginning of the game, and that hand can change from exposure to other chemicals, physical damage, or even just competing local smells.

We’re already at a disadvantage, biologically, because we can’t even use our senses to establish a singular ideal. Our “taste” is as unique to us as our fingerprints, as beautifully random as each snowflake in the flurries of a nascent blizzard. We’re destined to disagree about the things we lick and sniff, because our individual anatomies are about as congruent as 113th Congress.

But like art, objective good has to come from somewhere. Like say, from an established set of basic rules that do their best to form a consensus among those who’ve spent their lives fighting their unique perspective of the world. Painters are measured by their mastery of medium, or composition, or realism. Brewers are determined good by virtue of defects, or a lack there of. Our human standard for “good” is artificial, manufactured, a best guess created by experts in hope of wrestling down subjectivity and triumphing over our physical limitations.

In some ways, when considering that the rules are doled out by man, and the word of trained experts is taken as a baseline, hype and perception do become reality. If a person who has dedicated their years to hovering their nose a few centimeters above a settling head to pull out individual lupulin notes in a hop melody or the malty chords of Cigar City’s fifth concerto, who am I to tell them their educated opinion is wrong? If they say that Pliny the Elder is objectively the best beer in the country, I’m loathe to disagree. If a large majority of my beer peers also agree, by the time I’ve got the brew in hand, chances are I’m already expecting a pretty positive outcome.

So yes, while the quality of the beer is obviously what garnered the reputation in the first place, the hype trickles down through all our conversations, wriggling deep into your brain-meat where it sits and surreptitiously informs your opinions Our expectations are already tainted by what everyone else thinks and says, even if we try our best to come at a situation with the most neutral of biases.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It gives us all something to look forward to, a giddy little glee to exhale when we do get our grubby mitts on that beer we’ve so long coveted. But it also gives brewers a goal. A point of perfect that can be aimed for, met, possibly even beaten.

All that hype gets people talking about beer – and excellent beer at that – which I think we can all agree, is a great thing for our whole community.

Craft and Draft: Creators Make Terrible Critics

November 26, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

NaNoWriMo 2013 slowly slides to a close, with some writers who fell off their bikes on the 15th pedaling maniacally to catch up, some who pulled ahead early sipping brandy and smoking cigars, some who got lost in the maze of November crying into the 13,531 words of their half-formed SciFi/Noir/Erotica mutants, unsure of what comes next. It’s nearly time for reflection, lessons learned, time to hack away at the manuscript and see if its future is in the hands of an editor, or the hands of the garbage man.

Win or lose, you’ve entered an elite club: people who actually tried to write a novel. It’s not quite as exclusive as the full blown authorship club, but it’s a huge step in the right direction.

To the uninitiated, book writing looks prestigious and shiny, all private toilets and free time and fancy notebooks. But those who’ve snuck into these hallowed halls, tried to pierce the veil of novelcraft with sharpened, inked-out pens, know its dark secret. They know what eludes so many in the dark, lonely nights of a room illuminated only by the eerie blue florescence of a computer screen.

Writing a whole book, with chapters and paragraphs and some kind of cohesive plot, is hard.

Even for the most seasoned literary book-chefs, cooking tens of thousands of delicious words to perfection and then plating them in just the right way to make them appetizing to a hungry reader is a lot more complicated than say, making toast. It requires myriad often uncomplimentary skill sets: creativity, grammar, discipline, focus, logic, organization, hygiene. It’s a highly intense and demanding art form that, at many more times than people like to admit, is a lot like work.

Even if your novel is destined for the haunted sepulcher of that box of artistic rejects under your bed, be glad that you at least tried. Trying in this case won’t actually earn you anything (sorry Millennials! I can joke because I am one), but it does teach you an incredible amount about the creative process.

You learn how much effort it takes to write a successful book. How much mental dexterity and synaptic sweat. How much time, energy, and sacrifice goes into getting those words off the couch, into the gym, and then into underwear-model shape. You should, if you even sort of tried, realize that the authors who can and do write novel after amazing novel, are not just talented mofos, but also really hard workers.

But most importantly, it teaches you to not be so critical of someone else’s art.

There is nothing worse to me than the ruthless, mean-spirited critic who unabashedly slices through someone else’s work with a scythe of subjectivity, who goes out of his way to point out every flaw, no matter how trivial, as if his judgment is the final arbiter in the decision of quality and worth. There is nothing worse than a critic who critiques in a vacuum of ignorance and inexperience. There is nothing worse than the critic who does not create, has never created, and never plans to create.

If you’ve never gotten down there into the trenches, never had to slog through off days and busy days, never had to pour the art from your seeping wounds at the expense of yourself, you don’t know what each mistake means. You don’t realize that the author or painter or brewer put a piece of themselves into that thing you just gave 2 stars out of 5. You lack empathy, compassion, and close association with what happens on the other side of the creative spectrum.

To critique without an understanding of the effort involved is lazy, often valueless, and frankly, pretty boring. Digest something from the comfort of your chair, form an opinion, express said opinion. It doesn’t require a person to truly learn a craft or skill, it’s just an open avenue for them to channel their pathos, gratify their own tunnel-vision fueled interpretation of the piece with little to no concern for its creator.

But now that you’ve tried to write a book, you’re less likely to judge other creators so harshly. You’re more likely to be sympathetic to little mistakes, more likely to connect with what the writer was trying to do, even if the execution isn’t flawless. Because you’ve been there. You know how hard it is to weave in a theme or perfect all the dialogue. Now that you’ve tried to create (or actually have created) you’re going to pass judgement with a softer, kinder, more appreciative eye.

You are now, and forever, if you have even a bit of humanistic empathy in your soul, a terrible critic. And that’s awesome.

“It’s easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It’s a lot more difficult to perform one.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

Guest Post: How to Drink like a Writer – Find a Bar and Move In

April 22, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

This week, to honor the name of my blog, I’ll be talking about drinking, writing, drinking while writing, writing while drinking, and maybe even writing about drinking while drinking and writing. To that end, Ed from The Dogs of Beer has written a post about the history of writers, their haunts, and their drinks. If you’d like to write a guest post for LitLib, send an email with your ideas to literatureandlibation@gmail.com. Enjoy!

You can see why we call him, “Big Head Dog”.

Hello everyone! My name is Ed Morgan and I write a little craft beer blog called The Dogs of Beer. I’ve been writing for almost two years now, focusing mainly on the craft beer scene in and around the state of Delaware but at the end of the day, I’ll write about anything that strikes a chord with me. I’m aided in this endeavor by my girlfriend’s dog Gryphon (AKA “Big Head Dog”), who serves as photo and layout editor. Say hello to Oliver’s readers, Gryph.

When Oliver asked me to write a guest post for his blog, I have to admit that I was a little hesitant. After all, if you’re a regular here at Literature and Libation you know that above all else, this is a blog about writing, and that Oliver is a writer. I, however count among my literary achievements such things as believing that over the past year I’ve used semi-colons properly no less than 5 times. However, I’m sure that Oliver would counsel me that taking oneself out of one’s writing “comfort zone” is what all writers should do on occasion, and when he suggested I write a post about writers and drinking, I have to admit I was pretty keen on the idea.

I’m well aware that alcohol has long been a muse for artistic people. The love affair between the once banned Absinthe and the creative likes of Vincent Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is well documented. Many rock musicians have turned to alcohol thinking that it will heighten their creativity, sadly sometimes with deadly consequences. But musicians and artists are not unique when it comes to turning to alcohol. Writers too have had a fondness for drink and one of the things I’ve always found interesting in my travels and in my reading are the establishments themselves that have been made famous by association.

For instance, the Eagle & Child in Oxford, England, for all intents and purposes might have been nothing more than an unassuming local English pub, if it had not become famous for hosting the “Inklings;” a literary group that met every Tuesday morning in the Rabbit Room. The group was run by two Oxford locals: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Pete’s Tavern, in New York City, can lay claim to being a regular haunt for writer William Sydney Porter who, under the pen name O. Henry, wrote some of America’s most endearing stories including The Ransom of Red Chief and The Gift of the Magi. The tavern embraces this by advertising itself as “The Tavern O’Henry Made Famous”, and still maintains “The O’Henry Table”. While statements that The Gift of the Magi was written in the tavern are suspect, O’Henry did use the tavern (named Healy’s when O’Henry lived in NYC) as an inspiration for Kenealy’s Tavern that appears in his story, The Lost Blend.

And of course any Jimmy Buffett fan is familiar with Sloppy Joe’s in Key West, Florida, a popular haunt for Ernest Hemingway. The bar (which now sits on Duval Street after owner Joe Russell moved it there after refusing to pay a rent increase from $3 a week to $4) originally sat at the location now occupied by Captain Tony’s Saloon and was Hemingway’s preferred drinking stop when he lived in Key West. At the time however, the name of the bar was The Silver Slipper, which Hemingway hated, claiming it wasn’t “manly” enough. He badgered Russell to change it and Sloppy Joe’s was born.

Yes, the association between writers and their favorite watering holes can be pretty strong. So strong in fact, that cities like London, Dublin, and New York have literary tours that allow you to walk around and visit some of the establishments that writers have held so dear. But sadly, some bars, taverns and pubs have become associated with writers for the gravest of reasons.

When ever I go to NYC and step into The White Horse Tavern, I’m reminded of Welsh Poet Dylan Thomas, author of such classics as Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight and, And Death Shall Have No Dominion. Although his death in November of 1953 was largely due to complications of pneumonia, the use of alcohol has always been cited as a contributing factor. It doesn’t help quell these claims when only 6 days earlier, Thomas was seen stumbling out of the White Horse loudly claiming, “I’ve had 18 straight whiskies. I think that’s the record!” Years later in her autobiography, Dylan’s wife Caitlin would write, “But ours was a drink story, not a love story, just like millions of others. Our one and only true love was drink”

One can no longer walk into the Harbour Lights Bar in Dublin, Ireland but if you could, it probably would be practically impossible not to get a lesson on Irish writer Brendan Behan. Writer of Borstal Boy, an autobiographical account of Behan’s days in a Borstal prison due to his involvement in the IRA, and Hold Your Hour and Have Another, Behan may not be a household name to people outside the writing world. But he was an important figure in Ireland, and well known for his drinking. He’s credited with being the writer to first describe himself as “a drinker with a writing problem” and is the subject of The Pogues’ song Streams of Whiskey. One night, Behan collapsed while drinking at the Harbour Lights Bar and died later at MeathHospital from what’s been called “complications due to alcoholism and diabetes.”

I had been to the Fell’s Point, Baltimore, institution The Horse You Rode In On for a few drinks and some great live music on many occasions before I learned of it’s connection to the great Edgar Allan Poe. Poe’s exploits are legendary and probably well known by those who read Oliver’s blog. But some of the greatest mysteries left to us by the father of the modern detective story are the details surrounding his death. Poe was discovered, delirious, on the streets of Baltimore on Oct 3, 1849, in clothes that weren’t his and never regained enough awareness to say what happened to him before dying on Oct 7. People have argued many theories on the cause of his death; include delirium tremens, syphilis, tuberculosis, cooping, and even rabies. But what everyone does agree on is that the bar, “The Horse” was the last place he was seen before being discovered on the 3rd.

I’m sure one of the reasons Oliver asked me to write this post was to share my own personal thoughts on writing and drinking. Let’s start out by saying that the chances of me ever making a bar famous by dropping dead in it are very slim, however since I do write a beer blog, it’s easy to assume that for me the two go hand in hand. Well, that’s not quite true. When I’m writing a beer review I do like to be drinking the beer I’m reviewing. This gives me the ability to think about and capture what I’m experiencing in real time and make sure I’m not leaving out any important details that might be forgotten later.

However, what I’ve learned is that drinking and writing is a slippery slope for me, just like drinking and playing music. When I was playing in pick up bands there was an amount of alcohol that would calm the stage jitters and make me play with confidence. And then there was the amount of alcohol that turned my fretboard finesse into the inept clawing of a cloven ox. And what I found to be true back then is that the difference between those two amounts of alcohol was very small.

So in writing, a few beers are nice to relax the mind and get the creative juices flowing, but it doesn’t take much more to cause me to turn out 700 words that look like I typed it with my face on a keyboard where the Z, G, and P keys are stuck. Of course some would suggest that it’s not all bad, that at least the basic framework is there and all I need to do is clean it up later when I’m more lucid. But you writers out there know that poorly written paragraphs are like “fix-it-up” houses. Some you can do something with it, and then with others it’s best to just bulldoze the whole thing and start from scratch. And since I do that enough when I’m sober, I chose to put the keyboard down whenever I feel that familiar buzz taking over my brain.

I guess you could say that when it comes to writing, alcohol is my muse, but not necessarily always my friend.

I’d like to thank Oliver for allowing me to guest post on his blog. To show my appreciation, knowing that Oliver is a cat person, I’d like to share a couple pictures my girlfriend and I recently took at the Ernest Hemingway house in Key West, Florida. Hemingway was a well known lover of polydactyl cats and his house, now a museum, plays home to 45 decedents of his cat, Snowball. The cats have the full run of the estate, as shown by this picture of one of the cats calmly lying on a bed that visitors are not allowed to touch.

Ah Gryphon, the cat picture please?

Yeah, that’s not the picture I took. What’s your problem?

I know we have an unspoken “no cat rule” at the Dogs of Beer, but we’re doing a guest post for Oliver and I think he’d like to see some of the photos I took of the Hemingway cats. So could you just put up the picture I took of the cat relaxing on the bed, please?

Ok, this isn’t funny. You’re embarrassing me. Please put the picture up or you and I are going to have a major problem. I’d keep in mind that you’re still young enough for me to have you neutered. Last chance fur ball, put up the picture!

Thank you. Now was that so hard? The cats have four full time attendants and receive a vet visit every Wednesday. And as you can see by the happy expression on this cat, they really appreciate how well they’re taken care of.

I hate you.

Flowing with the Go

September 18, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

I only wear one piece of jewelry; a sterling silver pendant in the shape of a backwards number “1.”

It’s not a backwards number “1” though, because that would just be silly. I’m also not egoistical enough to wear the “top place” symbol all day and the individual digit itself has no special meaning in my life.

The necklace is actually a tiny version of the laguz rune; a Norse character of the Elder Futhark that roughly translates to “water.” I wear it to remind myself of the impermanence, flexibility, and tenacious qualities the ubiquitous liquid. Not only does it instantly reshape itself to fit any container, it can be difficult to contain to begin with. It will seep and soak and pour itself into any gap, only stopping when it has reached an obstacle that is, quite literally, impermeable. Humans have been trying to master and control water since Neandertals mastered the doggy-paddle, with relatively little success.

I try to apply these philosophical abstracts to my personal life. If I can flow and adapt like water, nothing but the most dense situations can contain me, and none but the driest and least pore-laden of of people can hold me back. After some practice, it makes the worst events seem like brief obstacles in the river of your life. You’re never stuck dwelling on or seething over something, as you’ve floated on long since.

These are ideas that I also apply to my craft; a set of principles that has helped me make progress as I wind my little writing stream closer and closer to the ocean of published professionalism.

When I write, I do my best to let my mind flow. I move with my ideas, letting them carve huge meandering curves into my story, sometimes resulting in oxbow lakes of sub-plots and minor characters as the words loop back onto themselves. I let my creativity spill from the goblet of my brain, watching closely to see where the droplets fall, seeing what pools where, what soaks into what, and if any streams run off in a direction previously unexplored.

It’s an incredibly free-form style, but hey, that’s water.

It reminds me of another concept I use when I write, the appropriately named phenomenon of flow. First articulated by Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (yea, I can’t pronounce that either), flow is the idea that when you satisfy a specific set of psychological criteria, your mind enters a phase where you are intensely focused on your art, time passes incredibly quickly without you noticing, and you are blissfully engaged at peak efficiency.

Flow can happen to anyone, anywhere, but is often tied to task-oriented activities like gaming, painting, sculpting, sewing, playing instruments, golf, martial arts, meditation – and you guessed it – writing. It aids in unleashing imagination lightning bolts and satisfying your primal urges to create. It also helps ward off depression and increase overall life satisfaction, if case studies are to be believed.

So the next time you’re slamming your head against your keyboard because the ideas just won’t come, or when they do come they suck, stop.

Think.

Are you a rock? Too sedentary, unwilling to move or change much, staying in the same place you’ve been for a very long time?

Or are you a gust of wind? Fleeting to a fault, not taking the time for ideas to mature, moving on to topic after topic but never really settling on anything for more than a moment?

Maybe you’re a dancing flame? Passionate but uncontrollable, letting your desires and emotions guide you, second guessing yourself, burning your words to ash in a fit of rage or destruction?

Maybe you should be more like water. Flow a little, it’s good for you.

(As I was walking to work, past the bridge, I noticed this, carved perfectly into the concrete as if it were as natural as the leaves on an oak tree.)

Along the way to close my eyes,
I lost where I was going,
the more it will spin,
the more that I try,
to stop my mind flowing away, away.

Review: Harpoon Munich Type Dark

April 20, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

So, I like beer.

If this isn’t obvious at this point, I can’t help ya.

But therein lies my problem. I like beer. Really like it. All of it.

My friend Justin said that I wasn’t so much a beer critic as a beer appraiser. I’m the “Antiques Road Show” of beer reviewers. Everything has its value, even that weird old afghan you found in your great aunt’s attic.

I have yet to give a beer less than 7 out of 10. I so rarely have a beer that is below a “C” for me, just because I fundamentally love beer so much. I can always find some kind of merit in a beer, even if it is outside my normal comfort zone, or more importantly, flavor zone.

I really try to find problems. Too tart, too watery, too generic. But my complaints are always overshadowed by my appreciation of the positives. I can’t help but think of the master brewer, testing the relative gravity, adjusting it perfectly to his detailed specifications.

Who am I, the lowly drinker, the anonymous end-user, to criticize his art?

I’ve been there. I’ve cracked the barley. I’ve bagged the hops. I’ve boiled the mash and stirred the malts. I’ve handled the ~50 pounds of steaming pre-beer, trying to bring it down to the correct temperature for yeast.

It’s hard work. It’s precise work. It takes part of the brewer to create a great beer, part of his energy and soul.

To give a beer a bad review is to disrespect that soul.

So I always try to find something redeeming. Even if it’s just the label art or the color. Every beer has its place in our world, its place on our palette.

Dark beers that lack hops are not my favorite. Part of the reason I drink beer is for refreshment, and dark malts tend to be antithetical to that notion. I do enjoy a good stout or porter during the winter, but I don’t often buy dark beer just for the sake of it.

Harpoon Munich Dark is toasted and chocolaty. It sits heavy in your stomach; this is a beer to drink while you read or unwind, not while you party. Any hops are sedated by the thickness of dark, traditional malts, making this an incredibly flavorful brew that is more like milk than beer.

I don’t drink them often, but if I were going to, I’d pick this beer again. It’s well done, even if it isn’t overly Oliverian. I think I’ll try to mix this with Harpoon IPA, to make a weird, hybrid Black and Tan.

7.5 out of 10.

Darker than the darkest dark, times infinity.

That concludes this series. Subscribe to check out the next round (which I haven’t chosen yet)!