Great American Beer Festival, Part Three

Now that I've had time to digest and think about this experience in Denver, here are some final thoughts:

The experience was deeply moving: This year marked the event's 25th anniversary and all concerned wanted to celebrate that fact. Because of my research for the beer book, I know a great deal about its early history. But as I told a press conference on the opening day, this isn't just the 25th anniversary of the GABF. This also marks a quarter century of a handful of people gathering in Boulder to create a new wing of the brewing industry. In 1981 and 1982, Charlie Papazian and a handful of other beer fans organized homebrewing conferences. But they made room a handful of goofballs from around the country who wanted to shift from homebrewing to commercial brewing.

In those early day, no one at the Boulder organization -- then the American Homebrewers Assocation; now the Brewers Association -- earned a paycheck. Well, except Daniel Bradford, but even he (hired in 1982) was only part-time. He waited tables to make ends meet. Everyone else -- including Charlie Papazian -- worked for free.

Those early conferences and the first GABF proved to be momentous: they provided a place where small brewers and the new "microbrewers" could gather to talk about how to solve the unique problems that small brewers faced.

For example, back then, the small guys couldn't pick up a phone and order equipment. NO ONE fabricated equipment for use on such a small scale. None of the maltsters wanted to sell small quantities of malt. Fritz Maytag often ordered more than he would need and brewers in northern California would drive down to San Francisco to Anchor and shovel malt into their pickup trucks.

But this 25th GABF was about more than just history. I was there to sign copies of my new book at the Brewers Association booth. But most of those books at the booth were "how to" books for homebrewers. And at every session, I watched as men and women who were there to share the joys of beer crowded around the booth to peruse the books on display.

"I've already got these three, but I've never seen this one," a guy would exclaim to his friend. "Hey," a woman would say to her husband, "here's a new book. Let's try this one." "Look," someone would say to his or her friend, "here are some books for beginners. Let's give it a try."

Over and over again, I watched people express their pleasure in beer and the adventure of homebrewing. Out there, I realized, are thousands upon thousands of people who love beer, who care about quality, who want to learn how to make beer at home, and who share that joy with their friends and family. As long as they're out there; as long as they show up at the GABF -- and endure throbbing eardrums and aching throats, beer culture in this country will thrive. I'm so grateful that I've had a chance to experience this part of American culture.

Beer? It's for all of us!

It's Time to Save Brewing's History

On September 8, I had the pleasure of speaking at the annual CANvention of the Brewery Collectibles Club of America. While I was there, I met Alan Paschedag, who is the front man for the BCCA's effort to establish a museum of brewing. Their website is here.

I think the United States might be the only western country that does NOT have some sort of brewing museum -- at least nothing professional. That's a shame. One thing I learned when I research the beer book was that much of this nation's brewing history (like so much else of our history) is lost to us. Records have been destroyed. Breweries demolished. There's no archive of brewing records (see the point about destruction of records.....)

It's too late to save our nineteenth century brewing history. But I'd love to see brewers and beer fans step up and try NOW to save the history of microbrewing. It's not too early to think about it. Many of the founders of the brewing "revolution" are in their 60s. It's time to save their stories (which I tried to do in AMBITIOUS BREW) -- and to provide a place where they can donate their records and files.

The members of the BCCA have made a bold first step in that direction. They've arranged to lease, rent-free, three stories of space in what was once the Lemp Brewing complex in St. Louis. They've also hired a museum design firm to draw up plans for a proposed museum and to create a presentation portfolio. I admire their resolve and their courage.

What's needed now are donors. I hope -- truly hope -- that some of the micro- and regional brewers can be persuaded to fund the next step. Can be persuaded to provide the seed money that will make the BCCA's vision a reality. Beer needs leadership -- and money! -- in order to save its own history. And the time to start is now.

That Ben Franklin quote

Okay, so I'm still perusing some beer blogs -- and I see a link to "beer quotes." Which sounded worth checking into.

And sure enough, there was my old friend, the Ben Franklin quotation. You know the one I mean: "Beer is living proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy." Or: "Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy." Such a cute quote. Has made certain t-shirt printers rich, happy, and fat (Ben Franklin would approve!) O

nly problem, of course, is that Ben Franklin didn't say it. As near as I can tell, the quote was concocted by a bunch of guys who own a t-shirt printing company in (I believe) Delaware.

How do I know that Franklin didn't say it? First I did my own research and in the space of about 15 minutes discovered that this alleged quote only shows up on undocumented websites.

That set off my historian's alarm bells, so I decided to dig deeper. One of my best friends is a Franklin scholar, and he, in turn, is friends with nearly all the Franklin scholars working in the U. S. So I asked my friend to check into it -- and he asked his friends for some help. Including the kind folks at the National Archives who are busy digitizing all of Franklin's works (your tax dollars at work!) They all confirmed what I already suspected: Franklin didn't say it.

One of the scholars said it actually sounded more like Samuel Johnson, so I did some more digging. Nope, Johson didn't say it either........ So "beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" is quite possibly the most famous fake quote on the planet!

The Observation Post

Welcome to my non-blog or, as I prefer to call it, my Observation Post. Why, you ask, is this not a blog? (Yes, I’ll get to the main topic, beer, in a minute.)

Here’s the thing about writers and blogs: Writers write in order to earn a living. Some write books. Some write magazine articles. Some write both. A few specialize in blogerature, but most writers earn their living in print, not onscreen. As a result, we don’t have time to maintain a daily blog because we’re too busy writing the books and articles that make up our bread and butter.

So if a blog is a literary form updated daily or at least regularly, this isn’t a blog. I won’t be posting the excruciating details of my life on a daily basis. Or every other day. Maybe not even every week. Not because I’m lazy or boring, but because I don’t have time to do so.

Okay, now that we’ve got that settled, on to more important stuff. Beer. Not, I hasten to add, that this blog will be only, always, and forever about beer. I’m ready, willing, and able to rant on just about any subject. (Don’t EVEN get me started on the subject of customer “service" at the phone company.)

Anyway, back to beer. 2006 marks the 130th anniversary of Budweiser’s American debut. In March 1876, Carl Conrad, a St. Louis wine importer, introduced Budweiser, which was brewed for him by his friend Adolphus Busch at the brewery owned by Busch and his father-in-law Eberhard Anheuser. In 1891, Busch gained outright ownership of the beer, which had already made him and his Anheuser-Busch brewery famous. He once commented that he was “often greeted as 'Mr. Budweiser' instead of Mr. Busch."

Today, Budweiser is perhaps the most famous beer in the world. (I didn’t say the most liked; I said the most famous.) This one brand accounts for a whopping eighteen percent of all the beer sold in the United States. That probably explains the minor uproar that erupted over a front-page story that appeared in the April 26 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

According to the report, sales of Bud have slipped recently because consumers want a “stronger," more flavorful beer. A-B officials explained, that yes, over the years they’ve reduced the amount of hops in the lager. Now, however, in response to a changing American palate, they plan add more hops to the Budweiser brewvats.

“See," said some folks (including many bloggers). “We told you so. Bud is nothing but watery swill and now even A-B is admitting it."

Not so fast. This tempest in a teapot (or brewvat) demands the perspective of history. This is not the first time brewmasters at Anheuser-Busch have tinkered with company recipes, nor is A-B the first brewery to alter its beer. The history of the American brewing industry is one of constant change and adaptation. Indeed, Budweiser itself is a product of the most important moment of adaptation.

The American brewing industry was born in the 1840s, during a wave of German immigration. In the 1840s and 1850s, brewers sold their beer primarily to other German-Americans. Many English-speaking, “native" Americans refused to drink alcohol, and those who did mostly drank whiskey, scorning scorned beer as too heavy and filling.

But in the 1860s, a second-generation of brewers entered the business. The most ambitious among them, men like Frederick Pabst and Adolphus Busch, longed to expand their markets. To do so, they had to create a beer that would appeal to Americans. So they and other brewers began experimenting. Using translucent, relatively light-bodied Bohemian lagers as their model, they began adding corn and rice to their brewvats.

The results were a revelation: The new lemon-colored lagers were nearly effervescent. They sparkled with a brilliant sheen and, thanks to the corn or rice, possessed a rich, creamy flavor. The new brews were not easy to make, nor were they cheap: in 1878, a bottle of Budweiser retailed for a dollar a bottle, at a time when a schooner of conventional all-malt lager sold for a nickel.

The new lagers elbowed heavy all-malt beers right off the table. In 1875, the Schafer brothers of New York tried to switch back to an all-malt lager. Sales plunged. Consumers wanted nothing to do with the old-fashioned heavy stuff. Budweiser was perhaps the most famous, because the finest, of the new American-style lagers. Between 1876 and 1882, Conrad sold twenty million bottles of the stuff! In 1891 alone, Adolphus Busch sold fourteen million bottles. That may not sound like much now, but back then, that was a LOT of beer.

So if A-B today is reinventing Budweiser, well, August Busch III and his son August IV are only following a path paved by the men who preceded them. To me, that’s the important story: for more than century, one generation after another of Busch men have kept a firm hold on their creation and an even firmer grip on the title of “nation’s largest brewery." And they’ve done so by paying attention to what customers want, and by focusing first, last, and always on quality. You may not like the kinds of beer A-B makes, but even the most diehard anti-Buscher has to admit: the Busch family does what it does better and with more consistency than any other beermaker in the world. That’s no small feat.

I don’t know about you, but I admire excellence, quality, and passion no matter where I find it.

So I tip my virtual hat to Anheuser-Busch, and send that fine American institution my sincere best wishes on this, the 130th anniversary of the birth of Budweiser.