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Nom de Bier – Beer Reviews as Told by Your Favorite Authors

August 19, 2015 · by Oliver Gray

One of my favorite exercises during grad school was to write essays that emulated the style of a specific author. My advisor (and all around amazing person and writer), Cathy Alter, had us read a nonfiction memoir and then, to the best of our ability, recreate that writer’s voice and style using our own words and topics.

It started off rough; trying to understand and then properly execute a writer’s style is like trying to guess the ingredients of an Iron Chef dish by only tasting a small portion during dinner. There are so many elements to work with, and a nebulous je ne sais quoi unique to each writer that makes 3D printing their prose a labor in dedicated and careful study, not just casual keyboard jockery.

But after some practice, I got better, and found that by analyzing other writers at a deep, intimate level, my own writing improved. It had the added bonus of teaching me to respect a large range of styles, and understand there is no one best way to present your story.

I’m nearly two years removed from grad school, and I miss those little exercises.

The obvious conclusion, “why not bring them back on the blog?”

Which of course lead to, “how do I emulate another writer’s style but also include beer?”

Enter: Nom de Bier – where iconic authors review beers!

Or, um, I try to recreate their styles and write a beer review in homage to said writer.

Originally, I had planned to do it on my own; randomly pick ten or so of my favorite authors and imagine how they’d review a beer. But one of the best parts about the grad school exercise was that I was forced to read new, different authors, outside of my comfort genres and usual literary wheelhouse.

So I made it social:

If you retweet this, I will, before the year is out, write a beer review in the style of your favorite author. #beer #beerwriting

— Oliver Gray (@OliverJGray) August 17, 2015

I did not expect 27 retweets. I’m fantastically excited that people seemed interested in this idea, and even more excited that I’ve now got an extensive, Twitter-friend built reading list. My Kindle is about to get abused in the best possible way.

When trying to emulate an author, there are three major aspects to capture:

Voice (this is the hardest part, and requires a bit of biographical research to know when and where the writer came from)
Syntax and sentence structure (this one feeds into voice: Hemingway, for example, penned his novels using a very specific syntactical method that many now recognize as part of his style)
Literary themes (easy enough to pick up on; much harder to execute)

Below is the list of requesters and their favorite authors (if I missed you, shoot me a tweet or email). Given that I have a lot of reading to do to truly understand these writers, I may do them out of order as I play catch up on some I’ve read less (or none) of. I may also warm up with some of my favorites, too, just to get into the swing of things before tackling some of the crazier ones on this list.

Keith Mathias ‏@KWMathias – Cormac McCarthy
Josh Christie @jchristie – Mary Roach
Aaron O – BottleFarm ‏@theBottleFarm – Hunter S. Thompson
Raising the Barstool ‏@RTBarstool – Sun Tzu
Leslie Patiño ‏@lpatinoauthor – Harper Lee
I think about beer ‏@ithinkaboutbeer – Mikhaíl Bulgakov
Andrew ‏@DasAleHaus – R.L. Stine
michaelstump ‏@_stump – William S. Burroughs
The Beermonger ‏@The_Beermonger – Michael Chabon
Tony ‏@DrinksTheThings – Arthur Conan Doyle
Douglas Smiley ‏@BmoreBistroBeer – Douglas Adams
Liz Murphy ‏@naptownpint – Christopher Buckley
Jeff Pillet-Shore ‏@allagashjeff – Neil Gaiman
Suvi Seikkula ‏@seikkulansuvi – Edgar Alan Poe
cassie ‏@lastxfantasy – Johnathan L. Howard
Xtian Paula ‏@drowningn00b – Haruki Murakami
‘rissa ‏@ScoginsBitch – Irvine Welsh
Fayettebrew ‏@fayettebrew – Chuck Palahniuk
J. R. Shirt ‏@Beeronmyshirt – John Steinbeck
Sara ‏@DoWhat_YOU_Like – Robert Heinlein
Nicola Chamberlain ‏@nchamberlain – Kurt Vonnegut
Michael P. Williams ‏@theunfakempw – Lewis Carroll
Heather Hedy F ‏@Hedytf – Stephen King
Robert record ‏@Reach4therail – Richard Wright
Melba ‏@melba_dnu – Harlequin Romance Style

I’m not going to hold myself to any particular schedule, as I’ve found out that doesn’t work well for me. Or my job. Or my social life. Or my brewing plans.

If you missed the original tweet and want to add your favorite author to the list, shoot me an email at literatureandlibation@gmail.com, or tweet me at @OliverJGray. Assuming I don’t spontaneously combust, or you don’t offer some very obscure, highly niche writer, I’ll get to your request eventually!

(And yes, I am still writing “December, 1919,” and working actively on Homegrew. Posts regarding both coming soon)

Beer Bloggers and Writers Conference 2015 – Moving Beyond the Beer Review

June 27, 2015 · by Oliver Gray

In a few weeks, amidst the serene beer landscape that is Asheville, North Carolina, I’ll be presenting on a panel at the Beer Bloggers and Writers Conference. The panel itself, “Moving Beyond the Beer Review” promises to be a pretty awesome foray into moving ones blogging and writing into the fertile lands that exist past the walls of the basics, and I’ll be speaking with some very esteemed company (a description of the panel can be found here).

I’ve done a lot of presentations in my 29.7 years, either at work, or through school, or as part of some culminating social experience. I’m one of those people who doesn’t fear speaking publicly, and sometimes even really enjoy it (especially the “have energetic conversations with enthusiastic people” part). Call me loquacious. Call me loudmouthed. I like to speak.

But this presentation manifests in my brain differently; perhaps because it’s the first presentation I’ve ever done about this little laborious love I call a blog, or about beer, or about writing about beer. It means a lot more to me than some generic book presentation or SharePoint training, and as a result, I really want to make sure I get it right. Thus this post.

Moving Beyond the Beer Review

Note: This is not a copy of what I’m going to present at the conference, I just wanted to get my ideas down/logically oriented and simultaneously make a reference document to share with attendees. If you’re going to be at BBC15, there might be some overlap, but I promise I’m not giving everything away. Think of this as supplementary ramblings.

When I started writing about beer, I wrote beer reviews. Creating accurate expository descriptions of beer means taking the time to learn brands and smells and flavors, giving a writer a good basis for creating good prose. Basic beer reviews are Beer Writing 101; a prerequisite needed to ground your mind and palate in the proper context, before exploring more elaborate topics.

I quickly moved past the beer review in my own writing, and have, for a few years now, sort of looked back at them with irrational disdain. My default line is that the traditional appearance, smell, and flavor driven review is boring. But simply dismissing them as not interesting doesn’t capture my true sentiment. It’s not that they’re inherently bad or have no use (the popularity of sites like Beer Advocate and Rate Beer proves otherwise), it’s that they don’t offer a reader anything except flat, encyclopedia-like information. I wanted to dig deeper and figure out why the beer review turned me off so much.

To start, there are some inescapable flaws with the traditional review:

They’re too subjective to be worth much
Thousands upon thousands of people have already reviewed most beers
Myriad sites already exist with this content, so reproducing it on a blog doesn’t offer anything new
There are so many other things in beer culture to write about besides what the beer tastes like

But these still didn’t get to the beating heart of why I disliked reviews so much. After much soul searching, I came to this ultimate, writerly conclusion: a generic beer review offers no story, and as a result, has a very hard time engaging a reader who seeks anything beyond rote fact.

A quick, important grammar lesson before moving on. And don’t get me started on your “not liking grammar.” A writer who doesn’t like grammar is like a chef who doesn’t like spices or a soccer player who doesn’t like shoes. Learn how to use your tools or find another trade.

Annnnnyyyyyway, there are two kinds of verbs: transitive and intransitive. Transitive verbs take a direct object, while intransitive verbs take a subject compliment.

Transitive: Oliver writes about beer.
Intransitive: Oliver is a writer.

While both sentences are similar, the transitive sentence shows me more information and progresses the sentence by using a strong verb, as opposed simply telling me a fact about the subject. Whenever you see “is” or “was” substitute in an equals sign and you’ll see what I mean.

Oliver is a writer (Oliver = a writer)
The beer was an IPA (Beer = an IPA)

All you’re doing with “to be” verbs is creating a comparison, not actually moving the writing forward, or creating an engaging narrative.

Let’s look at a full (but simple) paragraph to get an even better sense:

Transitive: Oliver writes about beer. He spins stories about fermentation. He also enjoys teaching people about grammar.
Intransitive: Oliver is a writer who writes about beer. His stories are about fermentation. Teaching people grammar is something he enjoys.

See the difference? Notice the lack of flow and staccato rhythm of the intransitive sentences? You’re also sinking deeper into the mire of passive language when using intransitives, and are forced to adorn your sentences with even more grammatical embroidery to capture the same information.

The operative word and idea is that transitive verbs show the reader something. There’s an old adage that pops up in writing workshops everyday: “Show, don’t tell.” It’s the idea that you want to guide your reader through a narrative and let them experience it as they will, not hold their hand and point out every little detail that is suppose to be important. Even if you’re only writing a review, readers want a arc, a mini-plot, a point, not just a data dump. This concept isn’t scary or new, either, it’s part of storytelling (and fiction!) fundamentals.

Knowing this grammatical sleight of hand, we discover that the beer review is not in fact boring, it simply does not show the reader anything.

Instead, it tells them. Forces information through their eyes and into their brains with no elegance or flow. It tells them what it tastes like, what it looks like, what it smells like. Why, as a reader, would I want that? Why not just go out and experience that myself?

When you ground your writing in intransitive comparisons (I see a startling overuse of “to be” verbs in nearly every review I read), you’re subconsciously telling the reader you don’t trust them to properly read your writing, or understand what you’re trying to say.

Not cool beer writers, not cool. Trust your readers, assume they’re smart and that your writing is clear. Have as much faith in your product as you do in the products you review.

BBC15 TL;DR – The innate problem isn’t the idea of beer reviews themselves, but with how a vast majority are executed. I see the same problem is event recaps, brewery and brewer profiles, and release statements, too. If you want more readers, more conversation, more engagement on your blog, you need to learn to use verbs to tell a story, even if that story is of you sitting at home, tasting a beer.

For some examples of transitive, story-based beer reviews, check these out:

https://literatureandlibation.com/2013/11/06/beer-review-sam-adams-thirteenth-hour/
https://literatureandlibation.com/2014/09/10/beer-review-southern-tier-warlock/
https://literatureandlibation.com/2014/06/27/beer-review-bells-two-hearted-ale/

Grammarian’s note: I don’t mean to imply that intransitive verbs are incorrect and should never be used. Obviously that’s not true, as I used dozens of them in this post (including this sentence). Just be aware of when you’re using them, and if they’re the proper verb for the context of your sentence. Sometimes they are, but with newer writers, often times they’re not. For more information about verbs, read this.

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

In Defense of the Alternative Beer Review

May 13, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

If you’ve been around for some of my Beer Fiction Fridays it’s not exactly breaking news worthy of auto-tune treatment that I don’t write traditional beer reviews. Sure, I’ve written quite a few nonfiction, more review-ish reviews, but even those tend to fall more on the side of narrative story than they do classic, “here’s what I think and why,” no-frills review.

An article from Focus on the Beer had me doing a Ctrl+F on my soul this weekend, delving deep in my psyche and emotional past for the reasons I write beer reviews at all. I think the obvious reasons are because I like beer and because I like to write. The rest just seems inconsequential, the unimportant details that seem to work themselves out without much extra thought.

But I’ve never been the type to actually read reviews of food and drink with an air of seriousness, never acted like the opinion of the critic or reviewer or dude in his basement somehow matters. I do often find my browser landing on Beer Advocate because, hey, checking out what the collective hive-mind thinks can be fun and a hands-on lesson in collective sociology. But I’m pretty sure I’ve never consciously recalled any of those reviews in the liquor store, saying to myself, “beerstud1991 only gave it a 2.63, no way I’m buying that junk.“ I can say with confidence that I’ve never let a beer’s “score” influence whether I’m going to purchase it or not.

Why?

Because taste is subjective. More so, I’d argue, than any other sense. We can pretty much agree (short of color interpretation) that we all see the same things. Aside from the thickness of different ear drums slightly adjusting incoming MHz, we all hear the same things. We can also agree that week-old cat litter smells bad and a freshly baked apple pie smells good. We can even agree that 300 thread count sheets are soft, 60 grit sand paper is rough, and a baby’s butt is the unequivocal standard unit of smoothness against which all other smoothness should be measured.

But taste has few standards; it is permeable, water soluble, in constant flux. Some people out there legitimately don’t like cupcakes. Others legitimately do like tripe. Every late-to-work scalding coffee burn, every jalapeno charged capsaicin rush, every chewing-too-fast-bit-the-side-of-your-tongue is part of the formula that always equals how you go about tasting, no matter what variables are added or changed. Your tongue, like a gross pink snake, sheds its skin and taste buds often, reacting to all kinds of things you put in your mouth, making it so you can’t even trust your own opinions over the course of your life.

And because taste is flawed, the classic beer review is flawed. Just because you liked a sextuple dry-hopped Imperial IPA, doesn’t mean everyone else will. Just because your palette isn’t as open to bitters and coffee malts, doesn’t mean that a coffee stout is bad. Reviews will always be biased and tainted by the reviewer’s in-born, unavoidable subjectivity and thus can’t logically be universally valid. There is no basis against which the goodness of a beer can be measured (although the BJCP is certainly trying to establish one) and as a result, what another person thinks about a beer will remain forever nebulous, floating in a foamy, lacey, off-white head of doubt.

I sound like I’m about to give up on the beer review. Far from it. Actually the opposite. The beer review is still a great thing, still has a place in our writing and beer worlds, but maybe not in the traditional Appearance+Smell+Taste+Mouthfeel form.

When you drink a beer, you’re doing a lot more than just putting some water, malt, hops, and alcohol into your body. You’re doing a lot more than just tasting a drink and reporting your findings. You’re becoming part of an ancient tradition that dates back ~10,000 years. You’re joining a enthusiastic community of like-minded brewers, maltsters, yeast-biologists, and hop-farmers who toil away to bring life to a beverage, a drink that has shaped and supported mankind’s rise to greatness like a pint glass supports an ale. You’re raising a glass to salute the infinite muse of alcohol, and sharing good times with your family and friends. Beer is more than the sum of its ingredients, it’s a glorious gateway, a cultural connection.

When you write a review, you’re telling the story of how you made that connection. You’re filling your reader’s head with the same warm, spinning buzz that filled yours, via a story or anecdote or worded snapshot of life. You’re not just telling them about the beer, you’re taking them with you on the experience you had drinking the beer. Write your reviews to show us the truth that was hard-brewed into the beer, the connection to that timeless tradition that inspired you to take bottle-opener to cap in the first place.

Don’t be so caught up in what people expect from a review. If you want to write about the hop characteristics because that’s just your thing, go for it. If you want to write about a memory that this beer brought surging back to the front of your brain, by all means. If you’re like me, and you want to write a story based on the taste and appearance of the beer, don’t let anyone stop you.

Drink what calls to you. Write what the beer inspires you to write.

“How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

Pilsner Madness Round 1: Victory Prima Pils (11) -VS- Gordon Biersch Czech Pilsner (12)

April 18, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Next up: The hop-heavy hitter, Victory Prima Pils trades blows with the malty-mangler, Gordon Biersch Czech-style Pilsner!

The Contenders:

Victory Prima Pils (11) –

For an unacceptable amount of time, I hadn’t anointed my tongue with Prima Pils, and had let Sam Adams Noble Pils, in all its noble, hoppy glory, reign as the king of flavor town. One sip immediately caused a coup in my brain; the loyalists of Noble Pils lining up in the corpus callosum, the revolutionaries of Prima Pils meeting them head on, glasses in hand like clubs made of delicate stemware. Then it got ugly. German malts and delicious hops everywhere. There is still a great-schism in my mind, two factions constantly warring over the holy pilsner lands, clashing at least once a month when I stand in front of a refrigerated case struggling to choose a six-pack.

Prima Pils carries with it the Victory Brewing pedigree than can be enjoyed in a few of their other brews: HopDevil, Golden Monkey, Storm King. They have a reputation for going big with the flavors and never going home, staying all night to party it up with the most hedonistic beer enthusiast. The word “prima” is a proclamation of joy, excitement, and success in German, and is definitely something I recommend yelling, inappropriately loudly for wherever you are, when you drink a glass of this stuff.

Gordon Biersch Czech-style Pilser (12) –

Where Prima brings the weight, the seriousness, the raw-heft, Gordon Biersch keeps it light and simple. Gordon Biersch (who many of you might know from the very massively displayed “GB” signs outside the restaurants that pepper various states in the US) is an odd mix between craft and mass produced. Some of their beers have hints of technique and artistic culinary flair but then you find out that they also brew beer for Costco.

Their Czech-style pils is competent, but unapologetically plain. It tastes like a beer brewed by committee, who decided what the best flavor balance would be with reports and statistics, not with what hops and malts went into the brew kettle.

The Fight:

I don’t want to be mean to Gordon Biersh here; this pilsner is solid, tasty, perfectly refreshing on a hot day. It’s got a nice balance of subtle hops to mildly-sour malt and I quite enjoyed drinking it, and would drink it again.

But Prima Pils – holy shit – it’s like a battleship cruising the seas of taste. It fires 48, deeply bored cannons of perfect hop, blasting a hole of wondrous joy into the smoking ruins of your taste buds. Drinking this stuff is like convening with a deity whose sole purpose in the universe is to make your happy and warm your belly with perfectly executed post-beer-bloat. It is alpha, followed quickly by omega, followed quickly by alpha again as you pop off another top. This beer is good.

So, this wasn’t a really fair match up, but not much could stand up to the mastery of Prima Pils.

Pilsner Madness Round 1: Laguintas Pils (9) -VS- North Coast Scrimshaw Pilsner (10)

April 10, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

(Yes, I am aware that the basketball tournament is over. The pilsners are still fighting it out anyway!)

Today, Northern California’s Laguintas Pils throws some ‘bows at its slightly northern neighbor, North Coast Scrimshaw Pilsner.

The Contenders:

Laguintas Pils (9) – Laguintas brewing has been on non-literal fire since it was founded in 1993. Led by the presumably pretty quirky Tony Magee (who wanted to open the Languintas Chicago Brew Pub early so that patrons and beer lovers could watch the adjacent brewery being built in near-real-time), Languintas is now in the top 20 Craft Beer Club with a yearly distribution of about 106,000 barrels.

As anyone who has ever held a bottle of their brew knows, Laguintas likes eye-catching names, labels, and flavor text. Their pilsner, brewed in the traditional Czech style like a few of our other competitors, has this blurb on its label: “…Ales and Lagers are as different as can be. Still, we must love each for who they are, separately but equally, with liberty, and justice, for all. Cheers!”

I agree.

North Coast Scrimshaw Pilsner (10) – Most beer enthusiasts only know North Coast Brewing for their incredibly well crafted (and incredibly well reviewed and tasted) Old Rasputin Imperial Stout. If you’ve never had it, if you’re not really a stout person, or an imperial person, or a dark beer person, even if you’re really into depriving yourself of good things, you should go try this beer. It’s one of those benchmark beers; once you’ve had it, your perception of the very beer universe (beerniverse?) might change.

But in the shadow of Old Rasputin, North Coast has 18 other beers in its lineup. That’s like, Sam Adams level of variety. The Scrimshaw Pilsner shows their technical expertise, it is perfectly clear, well balanced, and spiced right up with a little bit of Hallertauer and Tettnang.

The Fight:

These two middle seeds are not messing around. They might not have the per-year barrel volume to compete with some of the craft beer giants, but their skill in brewing is practiced, professional, and mouth watering.

Both pour nearly the same color, pale golden yellow, like a late-season wheat field catching the final rays of a lounging summer sun. Both produce a small head that leaves popped bubble residue hugging the top rim of the glass. If I took the bottles away, it would be nearly impossible to decide which beer was which on appearance alone.

Scrimshaw hits hard with a much stronger (and more pleasant) hop aroma, reminding me a gently hopped ale more than a pilsner. Laguintas by no means smells bad but it has a significantly more malt forward smell to it, like some of our contenders in the previous few match ups.

And then beer hits lips and angels sing and the world finds peace. Scrimshaw bites at the tongues a little bit, but is relatively simple in the depth of its flavor. Laguintas is significantly more complex (the extra malt zing works well here) and it finishes so crisp and refreshing that I find myself cracking another one before I’m even finished with the first one.

Behind the scenes, I score these beers (or should say, scored, past tense, when I drank them) based on presentation, smell, and taste. These two tied. I didn’t think I’d have a tie. I have no tie-breaker. Oops.

I did the only thing I know how to do: I left it up to Google. It’s like flipping a coin that has been silver-plated with the weight of the analytics hive-mind.

Laguintas Pils: 22700 results
North Coast Scrimshaw Pils: 2080 results

The Googles have spoken. Winner: Laguintas Pils. These are both great beers though, highly recommend either (or both!) for Spring and Summer time outdoorsy type things.