• Beer Fridge
  • Home
    • December, 1919
  • Me?

Literature and Libation

Menu

  • How To
  • Libation
  • Literature
  • Other
  • Writing
  • Join 14,872 other followers

Browsing Tags brooklyn brewing

Beer n’ Books – The Craft Beer Revolution by Steve Hindy

May 13, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

hindybrooklyn

Title: The Craft Beer Revolution
Author: Steve Hindy
ISBN: 978-1137278760
Pages: 272
Release date: April 22, 2014
Publisher:  Palgrave Macmillan
Genre: Nonfiction/History
Format: Hardcover
Source: Review copy

Growing up in a British expatriate household full of Oxford English Dictionaries and Encyclopedia Britannica, we playfully joked about our public school’s approach to teaching American history. My parents, products of northern England’s primary schools, found the way children were introduced to the political and social pedigree of early America both funny and fascinating. They’d look over homework assignments, amazed at how much detail was afforded to every battle, every colony, every document revision (as compared to British history), impressed at how thorough a retelling of events could be when it only had to cover a few hundred years, not a few thousand. But despite the depth they felt it often lacked applicability, that some of the history seemed forced, bloated to fill time and text book pages, with emphasis put on certain events to artificially inflate, not because of their influence of the founding of the nation.

They may have had similar concerns about Steve Hindy’s fresh release, The Craft Beer Revolution, which chronicles the rise of craft beer (defined as not the stuff from Miller or Coors or Budweiser) starting in 1965 and running up to present day. Forty-nine years isn’t an excessively long period of time to cover in 272 pages. The good news: their concern would have been misplaced. Although faced with the daunting task of sifting through pretty much all of modern America’s brewery, brewer, and beer-soaked history, Hindy manages to use his experience cofounding Brooklyn Brewing to condense and highlight many of the important aspects that led us to our fermented future. This is the journey of craft beer, told by one of its pioneers.

Those into beer know names like Jack McAuliffe, Fritz Maytag, and Ken Grossman, recognize that these men are the spiritual hop-wielding grandfathers of modern brewing. But to the layman, beyond a few photos, and a few too-often-used quotes, these men might seem two dimensional, spectres of a time when small brewing was as rare as organic labels in the grocery store. To the new beer enthusiast, these names might be completely alien.

While there are several other good reads that fall like wild yeast into the open fermentation vessel of “craft beer history” (namely, Ken Grossman’s Beyond the Pale, and Tom Acitelli’s The Audacity of Hops), Hindy gives a strong voice to the people who masterminded our current surge, connects the reader to them with quotes and anecdotes that color them as the decorated, dedicated brewers they were (or are). The strength of the narrative springs from the deep, insider knowledge of someone who was on the front lines of the transition from homebrewing and brewpubs to full-fledged breweries. Through Hindy’s research and interviews, a reader can feel like she’s standing right next to Charlie Papazian as he went from nuclear engineer to the head of the Brewer’s Association, and looking over Sam Calagione’s shoulder as he brewed the first of the beers that would eventually lead to Dogfish Head.

There are moments when my parents fears are realized, and Hindy’s content seems at odds with his structure; like a paragraph shoe-horned into the heel of a chapter solely because it was bristling with such potent information. At times, this gives a feeling of too much foot in too little shoe, description or notes inserted with little introduction or transition, just to round out a chapter. These sections, despite being clunky, do tend to add certain character to the narrative. It’s hard to fault Hindy for having too much good content, but it wouldn’t be a BJCP certified review to suggest I didn’t notice some defects in the body of the narrative.

These issues smooth themselves out by the middle of the book, just in time for the second act to dance onto the revolution stage: the politics of distribution and some infighting between regional competitors who should have, in a perfect beer-filled world, been allies. Some ire seems directed at Jim Koch of Samuel Adams; at one point Hindy calls him the “Harvard MBA-type” who seemed more concerned with marketing than establishing a local brewery, opting to contract brew in his early years, rather than establish physical roots. Later, he offers some admiration for Koch’s rise to commercial fame, but I’d venture that Hindy won’t be sharing a Utopias with Koch any time soon.

Ultimately, Hindy does an admirable job of writing a story that walks delicately between esoteric and approachable, telling the complex story of politics and law in beer in a way that wouldn’t completely turn off someone who didn’t already have a propensity for the bubbly stuff. The closing is cautiously optimistic, with Hindy suggesting (hoping) that Big Beer’s attempts to sneak in and snag market share with things like Blue Moon and Shock Top might actually lead to more business for smaller breweries, once the average consumer’s tastes evolve a bit more. Several jargon laden, industry heavy chapters might be harder reads for people who aren’t into beer, but by the epilogue, the book has done a fine job of capturing the inundation of American beer onto fertile consumer soil, and provides a deep, probing look at just how the river gained enough momentum over the past 50 years to successfully overflow its banks.

Brew Fiction: Black Friday Rules

November 29, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Unsure of the why but well practiced in the how, Liam pulled the straps on his father’s kevlar vest tight, jostling the back plate to make sure it didn’t move and expose any vulnerable vertebrae near his neck. Reminders of past years nicked and slashed the thick canvas, letting the ballistic plastic below smile through as a dozen plaque-stained grins.

His father shrugged forward to test his gear, twisting and bouncing like a sprinter preparing for the one hundred meter. He pointed to the machete lazing on a stool next to the fire. Liam lifted the blade, watching the flipped images of the flames dance on its polished face, careful not to cut himself on the edge so recently honed to skin slitting sharpness.

It was too much ferocity for a ten-year old, too top heavy, too awkward and inelegant to be an effective weapon. But in his father’s hands, rough steelworker’s hands, it snapped through the air, a cobra striking with steel fangs. After three quick flicks he slid it into the scabbard already mounted on his hip with a satisfying shlink, like a key settling into a lock. “Dad, why do you have to go out?” Liam studied the flames, trying to scry the answer before his father responded.

“We won the tickets this year. I have to go. We’ve been waiting for this chance since your little sister was born.” He sank into the ochre couch as he bent to tie his boots, the tension in the room tightening with each pull of the black laces.  Liam swallowed the mix of fear and tears that filled his little body to emotional maximum. “But…last year…”

His father didn’t look up from his boots. “Last year was different. I was just part of the mob. I thought maybe I could…but we don’t have to worry about that this year. I got tickets. I’ll be right up front. I probably won’t even have to use this.” He pet the machete like it was his loyal pet, man’s best metallic friend. The boots tied, he stood up. Where his lanky, underfed father had stood twenty minutes ago, a soldier stood now, a man made for war, ready to face or deal death, whichever came first.

From the window, Brooklyn looked split in two: slowly dying fires twinkled down the shadowy streets of the burrough, while those few who could still afford electricity blared prosperity from the top of the skyline like a decadent halo. Liam thought he could see into those impossibly high windows sometimes, catch a glimpse of the people in colorful clothes watching little men dance across digital screens, look into, however briefly, the life his father promised to bring home for them every November.

“Why can’t you just stay home? Me and Jess don’t need a TV. We’re OK, Dad.” His father stopped adjusting the filter on his gas mask and met the boy’s unblinking stare. “It’s not that easy, Liam. I want to give you the chance you deserve, and to do that, we have to fit in. One scan shows that we have no TV, no computer, and that keeps me from even interviewing for a better job.” He dashed a pile of high gloss ads off the kitchen table, casting a rainbow of sales across the sparsity of the ground-floor apartment.”We need this stuff, and today is the only day I can get it.”

A scream shattered the glass serenity of the night, the last cry of some unlucky soul falling early to the violence in the streets. His father knelt and put a hand on his shoulder. “It won’t be like last year, Liam. I promise. This time I’ll be there right when the meal ends. Right next to all the stuff. I’ve got a plan to get there, my whole route home. We’ve got the gear and I’m more prepared than ever. This year might mean we can move to the tenth floor next year.” He slung the empty sack over his shoulder, trusting the strength of his own bag more than the thin white plastic with the blue and yellow logo.

He moved towards the door, heavy boots marching out a funeral dirge on the wooden floors. “By why, Dad? Why does it have to be this way?”

His father turned around to take one last look at his son before he put his life, and his money, in the hands of the corporate machine. “Because it’s always been this way, son. There isn’t any other way to make it in this life. Those are the Black Friday rules.”

blackfridayrulemini

“Thousands they grieve as the Black Friday rule” – Flogging Molly

Pilsner Madness Round 1: Weihenstephaner Pilsner (7) -VS- Brooklyn Pilsner (8)

April 5, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

The first side of the Pilsner Madness bracket finishes up with the world’s oldest brewery, Weihenstephaner, facing off against New York’s finest, Brooklyn Brewery.

Pilsner Madness Bracket RD1 - 3

The Contenders:

Weihenstephaner Pilsner (7) – Weihenstephaner, a name I can never seem to spell correctly, has claimed to be the oldest continuously operated brewery in the whole world. With documentation regarding local Bavarian farmers paying hop-tithes (the best kind of tithes) to the Weihenstephan Abbey dating back to 768, it very possible that this is the oldest brewery still around. Weihenstephaner has a pretty extensive line-up (comparable to a lot of craft breweries in the US) including a Festbier, A Hefe-Dunkel, and even a non-alcoholic hefeweissbier!

Weihenstephaner also has a very well designed and highly navigable website that uses an animation of a beer glass being filled as its page loading indicator.

Brooklyn Pilsner (8) – My love affair with Brooklyn Brewery started with a simple pint of Pennant ’55 Ale. Since then I’ve sampled a lot of their suds, often satisfied, rarely disappointed. This brewery is 1219 years younger than Weihenstephaner, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t done some great things since it was founded in 1987. Owners Steve Hindy and Tom Potter, encouraged by their success and love of beer, wrote a memoir/how to brewing book (titled Beer School) that details their experiences with starting their own brewery and all of the business challenges therein.

Brooklyn pilsner was brewed in a style reminiscent to the light golden beer that was preferred in New York prior to the prohibition. The recipe boasts two-row barely malt and both Perle and Hallertauer hops, making this a very faithful recreation of the classic German-style pilsner.

The Fight:

weihenvsbrooklynThe young Brooklyn pours a beautiful pale yellow with a twinge of amber, echoing the orange of its label. The old Weihenstephaner pours a perfectly clear pilsner-yellow with no off color, almost like liquid gold in a glass. Both bubble and billow into a large head as they’re poured, but retain very slight lacing that sends very subtle hop notes up your nose as you bring glass to lips.

A pretty even match.

Brooklyn’s flavor is enviable. Clean, crisp, surprisingly complex for the style of beer. Despite the overall quality, it has a very subtle carbonation burn on the tongue and the hops tend to get lost in the malty aftertaste. Weihenstephaner, somehow, is even more enviable. There is almost no acidity and the hops find a perfect harmony with the malt, making for lip-smacking refreshment. I felt it was very slightly under hopped, but that may just be an issue of personal preference. I guess nearly 1300 years is enough time to really get the recipe down.

I really enjoyed Brooklyn’s pilsner, but I have to give this one to Weihenstephaner, just because of technical brewing prowess and pedigree.

weinhwinner

  • Blog at WordPress.com.
  • Connect with us:
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Follow Following
    • Literature and Libation
    • Join 14,872 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Literature and Libation
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...