With apologies to George Strait.
If you grew up as an American during the 1960s and 70s, nothing could have prepared you for a future of stylistic diversity as it pertains to beer and brewing. Naturally the same might be said of food and dining, in a broader sense, given that our role models back then were Chef Boyardee, La Choy and hard shell tacos.
However, this is a beer column, thus far steadfast in pursuit of the very best that beer can be, in spite of hourly provocations like Michelob Ultra and central wort houses.
A half-century ago, beer in this country did not fit any informed person’s description of “best.” It was every bit the dull and uniformly bland monotony that we merrily (and for the most part, unconsciously) redirected toward then-communist countries to describe their purportedly inferior quality of life.
And yet Pilsner Urquell and Budvar (Czechoslovakia), Radeberger (East Germany), Union (Yugoslavia/Slovenia), Okocim (Poland) and Saku (USSR/Estonia) comprise a handy six-pack of Warsaw Pact beer brands that easily exceeded our corn- and rice-choked lagers in terms of flavor and quality.
At least we Americans had solid-state school desks for use as shelters in case the A-bombs started dropping. Duck and cover, suckers.
I’ve always lived in Floyd County, Indiana, 45% of the time up on the hill and 55% of it down by the flood plain. In my youthful days, beer around here meant a golden-colored, aggressively carbonated liquid, sometimes cheap and foul, otherwise merely mute and insipid, although usually implying an easily digested portion of beverage alcohol.
As a reluctant Boomer (a word I utterly detest, although chronologically, I can’t deny the timing), I’m part of the first American cohort to be raised almost exclusively on sugar-permeated foodstuffs and drinks. Consequently, ad hoc jungle juice made out of Everclear and frozen juice concentrate, or the fine wines of Mad Dog and Boone’s Farm, were among the many alcoholic liquids easier for us to swallow than beer, and with a more efficient bang for the buck.
Bitterness simply was not part of our everyday repertoire, and while few beers of the age betrayed much in the way of hoppy bitterness, the maltiness of beer was not comparable to the sweetness of Captain Crunch or Coca-Cola, except for the plain fact that maltiness, like hoppiness, usually was implied in those American beers rather than detectable by the human palate.
I’ve long held to the view that discussions...Read more
