Does Belgium Have an "Intangible Cultural Heritage" of Beer? Does Anyone?

Yesterday, news came out that UNESCO had given Belgium a singular honor:

Citing Belgian beer's integral role in social and culinary life, UNESCO is putting the country's rich brewing scene (with nearly 1,500 styles) on its list representing the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Belgium's beer culture is one of 16 new additions that were announced Thursday.

The honor came with an accompanying video (see below), which helped flesh out the case--one that might have come straight from the Belgian tourist board. Perhaps you picked up on one tell of a certain kind of exaggeration in the quoted paragraph: "with nearly 1,500 styles of beer." That would indeed be a hell of an accomplishment!

I actually think UNESCO intuited something profound in Belgium's beer culture, but they didn't do a very good job of documenting it. Had they done so, they would have seen that a few other countries have a similar cultural status. Beer, almost uniquely among human activities, is a mirror of the culture that brews it. This was the great discovery I made researching The Beer Bible, and one I speak about whenever anyone invites me to do so. When you pick up a glass of beer from one of these countries in question (Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, the UK), you can only understand it fully if you know the agriculture, history (including things like wars, famines, and rulers), drinking culture, laws, and ineffable qualities that seem to have no source. Of course, these manifest not just in the ingredients and final color, strength, and flavors of the beer, but the way it was made.

In the video, Senne's Yvan De Baets describes the four different types of fermentation found in Belgium, but he skips over the most interesting element--warm rooms. This is absolutely central to the production of Belgian ales of all types, and is a process used nowhere else (except the new world, where breweries make Belgian-style beers). The English practice of cask-conditioning, the Czech insistence on decoction, the German approach that is filtered through the restrictions of Reinheitsgebot--all these countries do something that looks totally bizarre when you compare it to other countries. And those practices are a kind of distilled version of the whole national tradition.

Perhaps the Belgians, living in a smaller country where cultural heritage is more evident nationwide, decided to pitch this idea first. (I have no idea what gave UNESCO the idea.) But they have no greater claim to the heritage than these other countries--though indeed they have enormous claim to it on its face. Even Julius Caesar noted that the Belgians brewed beer. (They were probably doing something offbeat even back then.) Walk into any cafe in Belgium, and it's hard not to observe something unique and pervasive happening there. So yes, Belgium deserves this. But so do at least three other countries.

Now, enjoy the film (it is pretty good).

A Moment of Horn-Tooting

@Beervana Dude you cleaned up! Two golds, one bronze, and one "participant"

— Bill Night (@itspubnight) October 7, 2016

This morning, the North American Guild of Beer Writers announced their annual writing awards, and they sent some sugar my way. Over the past half-decade or so that they've been doing this ("we" actually--I'm a member and judged the first two years), the competition seems to have heated up. I completely crapped out this year in the blog category--after clawing my way to a bronze last year. (Bryan Roth has a hammer lock on the blog category.) I'd have to go back and look at the other categories I got skunked in--there were more--but there was something to celebrate, as well:

• Best book category, 1st for the Beer Bible.
• Best historical/technical writing, 1st for my Reinheitsgebot article at All About Beer.
• Best national/international reporting, 3rd for "Hop Shift" in All About Beer.
• And finally, for best podcast, Patrick and I picked up an honorable mention. (There's something delightfully perverse about our lo-fi production getting "honorable" anything.)

It's always meaningful to get recognition, but even more so from the peers who actually know the subject. Seeing the names of the people going by reminded me how strong the field of beer writing has become. I'm honored to be in their company.

Oregon's Best Beer

This week our local alt-weekly Willamette Week released their annual beer guide.  It includes their picks of the year's best beers and, for the first time ever, winners of the "Oregon Beer Awards" in 15 different categories.  Most people are pretty desensitized to best-of lists these days, particularly in this moment of online listicles.  Who cares what WW thinks, so goes the thinking, since we all have our own favorites?  I've got one foot in that boat, too, but there are a few reasons why this is a good and healthy development.

Upright's Alex Ganum. (WW's Arts and Culture editor,
Martin Cizmar, smiles in the shadows at right.)

Let's start with WW's pick for best beer: Upright Engelberg Pilsner.  Awards are only effective so long as they're credible.  I absolutely love this pick.  It follows pFriem's Strong Dark (2014) and the Commons' Urban Farmhouse (2013)--also excellent choices.  They're all good beers, but WW is also effectively using its bully pulpit to identify important beers.  Oregon breweries have been trying to make traditional pilsners for decades, and they just never sold.  Brewers love them, but the market is a tyrant--no sales, no pilsner.  Upright managed to finally break through, though.  I suspect it had something to do with restaurants--I would regularly find it on places with well-curated taplists.  (Chefs know that pilsners are great with food; they're versatile and won't overwhelm the dishes they've worked so hard to perfect.)  Since Upright came out, Oregon has now become a safe port for pilsners, and there are a ton of excellent ones around.  I've noticed restaurants often seem to reserve a tap handle for pilsners the way they do for IPAs.  Give Alex and Upright a lot of credit for that--and give WW credit for recognizing it.

This hints at why awards may have lasting value.  We don't fool ourselves into thinking there is such a thing as a "best" beer--subjectivity can never be quantified.  Yet collectively, awards are a great way to give a snapshot to a particular time and place.  Willamette Week's awards can't reflect the actual best beers, but they can illuminate where the beer world was at that moment.  Awards are really a way of saying, "here's where we were in 2015."  Done well, they act both as a pretty good time capsule and year-end wrap up all in one.

Willamette Week publisher Richard Meeker

I don't know if the Oregon Beer Awards will have legs, but I also think it's worthwhile to have a bit of pomp and celebrate an industry.  On Monday, WW announced the awards at the Doug Fir Lounge, and there was quite a turnout.  Kurt Widmer, rarely sighted in the wild, was in the house.  Matt Swihart, rarely cited in Portland, was too.  You couldn't swing a bottle of High Life without hitting a brewer (bottles of which started popping up after the beer lines downstairs got too long).  I was part of the selection committee that created the categories and made nominations.  (It was mostly brewers and people inside the industry, not writers.)  WW sent the names of the ten nominees in each category out to a couple hundred industry types for the voting.  The recognition came from inside the industry and allowed some smaller entities to shine.  It felt like the kind of collegial event that has been the hallmark of Oregon brewing for so long--and I could imagine it surviving well into the future.

So while I don't need WW to tell me what Oregon's best beer is, I'm glad they did anyway. 

Very Cool People

On Friday evening, I enjoyed a couple hours and a few beers at Beermongers with Joe Middleton and Jason Rizos of the Oregon Brew Crew (Joe's the tall one), where they presented me with the hardware that goes along with the Pulp Bung award. Before you leap to the conclusion that I'm on my second victory lap--gauche, at the very least--wait. I actually am remedying a mistake from that earlier post. The Brew Crew cited several people for awards, and I wanted to nod in their direction. Six people in all received bung awards, and two--Oliver Manuel (homebrewer, cited for contributions as a volunteer to the Brew Crew) and Randy Plew (of Plew's Brews, in St. Johns)--are unfamiliar to me. To them I nod with appreciative ignorance.

The three others, however, I do know and they are among the people I most admire in the Portland beer world. I consider it extremely good fortune to share this award in a year they were also honored. So, to these very cool people:

• Chris Crabb ostensibly does PR. She has long worked with the Oregon Brewers Fest and Holiday Ale Fest, and lately with some local breweries, and possibly she does a lot more than that. But "PR" understates matters. Bad PR people send out press releases. Good PR people send out press releases and liaise between the media and clients. Exceptional PR people build long-term relationships with people, making the media feel like clients. Back in 2004, when I had long been out of writing about beer from anything looking remotely like real media, I contacted Chris and told here I'd be blogging about the OBF. For a political blog (post here). Cool, she said, and got me credentialed: classy. Over the years, every email I've sent with questions has been returned within hours with accurate info and a pleasant response. This year, unbidden, Chris sent me a spreadsheet of the beers at the Holiday Ale Fest, adding a note mentioning that she knew I liked this kind of data, so here it was. The award goes to her for her "efforts to promote or support the trade from a commercial perspective," but this also understates it. Someone said, "she's one of the good ones," which is better.
• Alex Ganum won the Jim Kennedy Entrepreneurial Bung, and I'm not sure if it honors his work founding Upright Brewing, his joint project with Ben Meyer (Grain and Gristle), both, or something else. In any case, it's deserved. With Upright, Alex pushed the envelope on brewing in Portland--away from hops, and toward a brave new future. More than any brewer I know in Oregon, Alex is oriented toward the culinary possibilities in beer. When a I wrote a piece for Sunset last year, I asked him which cheeses his beers best suited. He wrote back at length with a variety of suggestions for pairings, including descriptions of the flavor notes and how they related to each other. In a city that takes food very seriously, Alex has created a series of that can match the culinary diversity. If Portland is going to continue to be on the leading edge of good beer, we need folks like Alex around.
  
• Ron Gansberg received a special bung for achievements in sour ale brewing. I've written a lot about Ron in the past few years, so probably not a lot more needs to be said. I've raved about his beers and described him as everything from a mad scientist to Willy Wonka. I could add James Brown, because Ron's the hardest working man in brewing. In the past 18 months, he's come into his own and is now achieving the national reputation he richly deserves, and Oregon is getting some ink for beer that doesn't feature hops. With the debut of the Cascade Barrel House earlier this year, Ron's beer has begun to receive more attention in the hometown--also richly deserved. I have gone on and on about Ron in the past, so no need to do so here.

It's interesting that in the year I was selected, the two brewers who were also selected have won Satori Awards. I don't know if the Brew Crew planned it that way, but I thank them for it nevertheless.

_______________
Photos: Jay Brooks (Crabb) and Angelo De Ieso (Ganum)

Awards Season, Floyd and Alworth Edition

Ah, December, the time of awards. Outside Portland, the "Bung Awards" probably don't mean anything, but here, they're a pretty big deal. The Oregon Brew Crew, an ostensible homebrew club (but actually also an advocacy group for good beer--and easily one of the five most important reasons the city is known as Beervana), offers up annual awards to "to acknowledge, honor, and occasionally, share a laugh with many members and craft beer industry personalities." There are bungs for homebrewing, beer appreciation, service to the beer industry, and--important to this particular post--the "Pulp Bung," awarded to a writer. This year, for the first time, the Brew Crew named me. It's a huge honor and an award I've coveted since I wrote for Willamette Week. Thanks, Brew Crewers!

The second award goes to Ninkasi Believer, who won Wired Magazine's months-long beer bracketed taste-off.

A red brew in a tourney full of wheat beers and IPAs. But with its easy 6.9 percent ABV and rich profile, the Believer garnered much support of skeptics as the night wore on. Devin declared that he “didn’t expect to like it, yet I loved it!” Peter said it “was just right. No messing about.” Brian Noble found it “nice and hoppy, but with a good body to back it up.” One unnamed voter found the Full Boar “too subtle; Ninkasi had much stronger flavor.” Brian Mossop of PLoS summed it up best, saying, “I did not vote for this beer in the first rounds, but the Double Red made me into a believer.”

Ironically, one of the beers Believer had to crush under its heel to win was Total Domination. Not bad.

Beer Star Awards?

Via John Foyston, I see that Deschutes has won another busload of awards from a tasting festival--The European Beer Star Awards. Who? The 21st Century may go down as the "awards" century. In a version of Andy Warhol's prophesy, we might say that in the future, everyone is destined to win 15 awards.

It's not just limited to beer, of course--literary awards, film and TV, music, food, liquor, wine; they all now have an ever-greater number of awards. (I am a culprit: look for my Beervana beer of the year later this month.) The reason is that awards presenters burnish their own image while createing excitement and interest for their organization. Breweries no doubt like it because everyone loves winning. The ultimate effect, however, is that if everyone is honored, no one is. The net effect of all these awards is that the more we see the results, the less we care.

So now we have the European Beer Star Awards, which has apparently been around just four years. Its bona fides seem good--it's hosted by a couple of Munich breweries and the association of small and independent breweries of Europe. Based on the entrants (62% German) and winners (visual inspection confirms that the majority--or at least a plurality--were from "Deutschsland"), EBSA appears to be a mainly Teutonic affair, however. It featured 575 beers from 28 countries--though it's not clear how many breweries that represents. Boston Beer was the big American winner, with eight medals, but Oregon did great, too. We had six winners, including three golds for Deschutes. Rogue and BridgePort also took home some metal. A pdf of the winners list is here.

Make of it what you will. Cheers to the winners!

World Beer Cup Winners

I received two emails about the recent World Beer Cup awards--one from a BridgePort employee (I'll let him out himself is he wishes) and one from the BridgePort publicist. It should therefore come as no surprise that BridgePort took home the gold. They did. At the end of the post, I'll put a listing of Oregon and Washington winners (Washington being the northern province of Beervana).

But before I do, let me spend a few moments venting. There are two main US brewery awards, the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup. I don't exactly know what distinguishes them--both are part of the Brewers Association hive, and both claim to be the bee's knees in terms of competitions. (Admittedly, the Beer Cup is an international competition, though barely--of 2221 beers entered, 1433 are American).

I have two major problems with the fest(s), and I think any announcement of the winners should be prefaced by this acknowledgement. First, the Brewers Association long ago made the decision to judge beers by style. Thus the macropilsners, by virtue of being entered in the "stink-ass tin can, cheapo" category (I think it's actually called "American-Style Low-Carbohydrate Light Lager"), always take home some metal. Meanwhile Hair of the Dog, by virtue of not being brewed to any known style, has won exactly bupkis.

The second problem is geographic. Each region of the world--and now of North America--has developed a particular palate. The West Coast loves beer that's got rich mouthfeel and is hop hop hopilicious. This is particularly true of the Northwest. It is almost impossible to find a beer with less than 30 IBUs or less than 5% alcohol. Even Full Sail's "Session"--their offering as a competitor for Pabst--is 5.2%. The Colorado style is quite the opposite. They love sessions, don't like aggressive hopping, and tend to brew slavishly to style. And of course, the Brewers Asssociation is a Colorado production, and the founder and Lord, Charlie Papazian, has always been slavish about style. What results are competitions that favor precision over virtuosity, and Colorado beers over Oregon beers.

Oh, and what the hell--here's a final whinge. To compensate for the problems raised by deciding to judge according to style, the Beer Cup has now created a style for almost every beer, including such beauts as "Coffee Flavored Beer" and "Wood and Barrel Aged Beer," not to mention two or three different version of standard English-derived beers like "English IPA," "American IPA," and "Imperial or Double IPA." In all there are 85 "styles," a proliferation worthy of the DSM. Can "Northwest Style Double Pale Tall Skinny Machiato Flavored Beer" be far behind?

So anyway, having spent four paragraphs detailing why this fest sucks, here are the winners. Enjoy!

Oregon Breweries (by alpha)
BridgePort - Blue Heron Pale Ale - Gold
Caldera - Caldera Pilsener Bier - Gold
Caldera - Caldera Dry Hop Red - Bronze
Full Sail - Session Premium Lager - Bronze
Laurelwood - Organic Deranger - Bronze
Pelican - Kiwanda Cream Ale - Silver
Pelican - India Pelican Ale - Silver
Pyramid - Pyramid Hefeweizen - Bronze
Pyramid - Pyramid Crystal Weizen - Bronze
Rogue - Shakespeare Stout - Gold
Rogue - Morimoto Black Obi Soba Ale - Silver

Washington Breweries
Boundary Bay - E.S.B. - Silver
Boundary Bay - Cabin Fever - Bronze
Elysian - Dragonstooth Stout - Gold
Fish Brewing - Old Woody - Silver
Ram/Big Horn - Seattle - Total Disorder Porter - Bronze
Rock Bottom - Bellevue - Vienna - Silver
Rock Bottom - Bellevue - Hop Bomb IPA - Silver
Silver City - Fat Bastard - Silver
Snipes Mountain - Sunnyside Stout - Bronze
Walking Man - Blootvoetse Bruin - Gold
Walking Man - Walking Man IPA - Gold
Water Street - Big Phatty - Silver