I have to admit that my first reaction to the image to the right of the milkshake made with Samuel Adams Octoberfest beer was a bit of a gakky feeling but then I remembered that I don't really like this pumpkin¹ beer anyway so maybe this would not either be all that great a loss or, when you think about it, perhaps the proper way to serve it. It sure makes for a pretty picture with the beer hovering in the background - but I thought the golden rule was never put milk in your beer glass. Hmm...
What else is out there corrupting good beer? Stan has a new candidate - cellaring beer as an investment. An investment!!! I was only surprised how limited the investment portfolio was, how it reflected a very slim view of what value in beer represented. Besides, who advocates investment in what's already suffering from an overheated market? None of the 10 beers listed is anything but a bubble commodity waiting to burst... except, of course, when simply in the glass.
Boak and Bailey have raised the spectre of strawberry "fruit lager". There post begins with a quotation from an early '70s book, promising a distopian future where "...one of the big six was already test-marketing an orange beer, and this is now generally available. A pint of orange today, a pint of strawberry tomorrow." I actually think the vision of forty years ago was of a different sort of gak, malternative or alcopop gak. Not just a bit of blackberry pulp in the porter. But, in either case, has fruit ever improved a beer or does it just hide failings?
Beer as sauce on a dessert. Beer as money's worth. Beer as something so devoid of its beeriness that we don't even know it's beer. Makes you want to drop the best part of a hundred bucks to a food and beer pairing event. No, it's maybe not that bad. It does make me wonder why it is not good enough just to be that fat Englishman who missed the train because of his love of beer. In the end, doesn't he sum up all that is good and lovely with beer - and what all the schemes of science, investors and industry can't improve upon?
¹Why did that happen? It was more of a brain fart but interesting as I lump all these things together in my mind - these pumpkin ales, spiced ales, october-fests, harvest ales. Harbingers of the death of the garden more than mellow fruitfulness. It's only five years since one wine writer erroneously suggested pumpkin beers needed reviving. In 2007, there were 150 examples listed at the BA. Now there are over three times that. They arrive here in a lump but all remind me of gourds lost more than anything I look forward to.
Comments
D$ - September 12, 2012 11:08 PM
um, sam adams oktoberfest is not a pumpkin beer.
Alan - September 13, 2012 7:18 AM
Oh, yuk... it's that sweaty thing that lacks pumpkin but you are right... fixing...
Bailey - September 13, 2012 8:23 AM
Fruit beers (and other novelty beers) have their place, just like there are certain CDs that only get dusted off once every now and then when we're in the mood for some Turkish psychedelic funk. The Belgians know how to use fruit, too, but then a good kriek has the fruit integrated into the beer -- not just used as a colourant.
Alan - September 13, 2012 8:27 AM
Maybe that's it. I have all the time in the world for a saison with a nod of white pepper but if it was labeled "White Pepper Saison with MORE WHITE PEPPER" I would probably pass it by. I do like a stout with a pinch of blackberry.
Craig - September 13, 2012 8:54 AM
I will admit to making IPA ice cream.
It's amazing.
Belgique UK - September 13, 2012 9:23 AM
Wow, I too always thought milk and beer should not mix, yuck. What happened to letting beer just be beer?
Alan - September 13, 2012 9:50 AM
Wow. This is getting scrappy.
I have to admit that I would not be against the idea of Saison Dupont sorbet style gelato as long as nothing else was added.
Alan - September 13, 2012 9:56 AM
ATJ is clearly channelling the fat man who missed the train.
Craig - September 13, 2012 10:20 AM
The key with IPA ice cream is to use the ones that lean citrusy. My personal suggestion is either Southern Tier or Lakefront IPAs. The sugar reduces the bitterness, but the happiness stays. It has a grapefruit/tangerine-ness with a sweet malty, creaminess. It's good stuff.
What's really unique, Belgique, is that the beer still shines through—IPA cream does just let the beer be beer. It's just a lot colder.
I might have to put a post up abut this.
Saveur Bière - September 14, 2012 4:18 AM
A Karmeliet ice cream ! nothing better !
Ed - September 14, 2012 12:15 PM
Oktoberfest brews are far from the same category as "fruit" and "pumpkin" beers. Oktoberfest is a traditional Festbier amber lager beer, slightly above average in gravity and alcohol, and a discernible hop bitterness. It is meant to be less heavy and satiating. Pumpkin ales are actually brewed with chunks of pumpkin, but the sweet taste you're experiencing is most likely the added brown sugar. Sam Adams pumpkin is brewed like this, with no added "pumpkin flavoring liquid". Brewing beer with different ingredients is an option that microbrewers thrive on and seasonal beers are easily marketed. They're also very fun to brew!
Alan - September 14, 2012 3:33 PM
Ed, you are killing me. Do you seriously think after all these years and years of writing about beer I am not aware of all that? And... "Brewing beer with different ingredients is an option that microbrewers thrive on and seasonal beers are easily marketed." Really? You really thought that was a sentence that needed adding to my life?
Fact: all autumnal beers are signs of the coming of death to the living world. That bell? It tolls for you.
Bill Night - September 24, 2012 2:20 PM
I had an aneurysm last November when the Homebrew Chef column in Beer Advocate advised us to brine our Thanksgiving turkeys in four (4) bottles of Allagash.
Soak a raw turkey in 3 liters of fancy beer and then throw the beer away? That is an insane waste. There was a backlash in the BA forums, but sadly I can't locate those posts any more (just this one where someone brined a turkey with Saison Dupont: http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/pairing-advice.31488/#post-402356 -- madness).
Sorry I'm weeks late with this comment.