It is good to be a fan of good beer and promote it and all but we still do say silly things some times as this article about a conversation with British beer writer Melissa Cole illustrates:
...we start with a bottle of Coney Island, by an American brewer called Schmaltz (which also makes kosher beers called He’brew, Genesis Ale and Messiah Stout). It instantly changes my mind about beer being – on the whole – unpleasant. It was better than wine. It was outrageously floral, then creamy, and not at all tinny. Commodity beers such as Stella and Fosters are made with maize and rice, which adds a vegetal odour that is instinctively repellent to women, says Cole. Quality microbrews such as this are a different world."
Yikes! Look, don't get me wrong. I think there is no gender in beer and am pretty much satisfied with that opinion, especially given my university years and the gang I hung around 50% of whom were not male yet could hold their own in any vat of macrobrew. Yet... yikes! "A vegetal odour that is instinctively repellent to women"??? I've repelled more folk - whether XY or XX - with highly hopped beers and lambics than I ever have with mass produced brews. So, I will assume she was misquoted. Or that she was under the charms of The Rake, the pub referenced in the article above as well as this one which jumps, like so many others this week, into the discussion about BrewDog's Tokyo.
Comments
Melissa Cole - September 9, 2009 9:09 AM
Hiya Alan,
I wasn't misquoted. A lot of the beer rejectors I meet - and not just women but this was the context of the article - are put off by the smell of commodity lager brands, the super-high carbonation or the general paucity of quality in them.
I didn't say that commodity brands weren't accessible, or that other beer styles aren't more scary, what I was pointing out is that, scientifically, women have a better palate and that they will be more sensitive to these kind of off scents & flavours and would be therefore more likely to reject them.
I'm also not saying that men don't smell or taste these either, what I'm asserting is that because women aren't socially 'expected' to drink beer, they are therefore not necessarily under pressure to get used to a set of aromas or flavours they would instinctively reject - and so because commodity beer is usually their first contact with the brewing world they immediately default to the position of not liking beer, which is what I'm trying to counter.
I'm sorry you thought it was a silly statement, but I disagree with that assertion, and can see how you come to the misquoting conclusion given some of the factual errors in the article, but hope the above offers a bit more explanation.
Melissa
Alan - September 9, 2009 9:26 AM
Thanks but I have to admit I still do think it is silly. You have explained that a lot of people reject the smells yet maintain that "female instinct" is involved and added "what I was pointing out is that, scientifically, women have a better palate." Please provide the science for the palate and the instinct or these things will look silly.
Isn't the real point that most people can easily tell that crap beer is crap by its inherent crapulousness?
Alan - September 9, 2009 10:53 AM
For example, these be taste scientists.