My Beer Rationale

After poring over several sets of “how-to” instructions; reading descriptions written by others in newspapers, magazines, books and blogs; trying it myself and holding my own group tastings, I know I need to specify beer tasting criteria that suit my senses.  

I see no point in competing with, or repeating – or plagiarising – material available via the simplest Google search or written reference.  I’m not implying there is anything wrong with what others do, say and write about beer, but I am going to do this my own way. 

I have sensory limitations.  A lot of the beer I hold up to the light, visually examine, swirl, sniff and (eventually) taste looks, smells and tastes like . . . well . . . beer. 

And so it should.  I believe that all foods – liquid and solid; animal, vegetable and mineral – should look, smell and taste like what they are.  One food pretending to be like another never works as well as the real thing, although there are positives in this approach to those who choose not to eat the original for health issues or reasons of principle – such as Quorn woven into material that sort-of resembles meat, with, meat-like flavourings added; gluten-free grain products (including beer) and low-fat spreads.           

I can identify food by type without much trouble: meat is meat, potato is potato, sprouts are vile, metallic, sulphurous creations of Satan; it’s just when I get down to detailed analysis I find that don’t always “get” what is meant to be there. 

For example, I might sniff at a beer and conclude: “fruit”.  The tasting notes on bottle label, pump badge and brewery website may tell me I should be getting “grapefruit”, perhaps followed by “ripe peaches”.  An experienced beer taster could describe in the same beer how the individual scents and flavours come in along in layers, describe the over- and under-tones, depths, combinations and comparisons – such as how the hints of vanilla complement the mocha coffee notes, the sweetness of marshmallow builds until peaking in Thornton’s toffee before giving way to a long, dry, bitter finish with a whiff of woodsmoke putting me in mind of a late-autumn day garden bonfire . . .  – all of which leaves me feeling inadequate.  

So why do it at all? 

Well, I like beer.  I think it is the best drink in the world and it can be all things to all people with its range of strengths (0.01 alcohol-free up to 27%), drinking temperatures (ice-cold to mulled), aromas, flavours, bodies, nutritional and refreshment qualities.  It is a sociable drink, easy to obtain, even to make at home. 

Beer is a useful ingredient for cooking, a replacement for some (beer instead of milk in pancakes, replacing wine in casseroles) a great accompaniment for the widest range and types of foods from delicate seafood to my own home-made Christmas pudding.  There is a strong tradition of my place in the world in terms of climate (barley and hops are vastly superior to any alternative ingredients), brewing temperatures and culture. 

Also, I taste a lot of beers.  Almost every decent pub I go into has at least one beer I’ve never heard of (or have forgotten) and some I enter weekly have several new brews each time.  It is impossible to taste them all, so I choose based on staff knowledge, label blurb, a swift (free!) taste, other drinkers’ opinions, personal experience and advance research. 

So it’s all about me, is it?  

                            

Of course it is!  These writings are entirely my own impressions, opinions, moods and prejudices.   

If anybody wants the details what the brewers, marketing people, vendors and other drinkers get from beer, the internet is awash with details and I have not the slightest intention of these personal impressions competing with any of those sources.  

Thus . .

My Beer Criteria:  

Basic Details

Producer, beer name, alcohol, storage, etc (cask, keg, bottled-conditioned, etc.)

  

Appearance 

The glass may add to or detract from the drinking experience.  I happen to think that the tall, top-heavy, vase-like glasses used for some lagers are a benefit if sparkling clean and full of golden, bubbling liquid supporting and contributing to a thick and lively head.

On the other hand, a pint of anything in a dirty, chipped, thick-walled, window beer mug loses some of its visual appeal. 

  

Beer always tastes best from a clean, dry, polished and residue-free glass at the correct temperature for the contents.  Pewter, pitch-lined leather, porcelain and plastic are all inferior to glass – although some are more inferior than others. 

Beer colour ranges from pale straw to black, a pretty large colour palette.  I shall  don’t use paint chart terminology, describe “hues” and “colourways” and will stick to basic descriptions: I use the following, possibly qualified as “pale” or “dark”: straw, gold, amber, red, brown, purple, brown and black should do it, with a few combinations for variety – “dark red-gold”, perhaps.

A head may be present or absent, tight or loose, dense or light, white or coloured  depending on type, method of delivery and expectation.  I don’t expect a lively, white-foamed head from a porter served by gravity from a cask tap.  Not do I want a golden summer beer to leave the hand pump without a trace of a bubble.  Lacing on the side of the glass as the glass is an attractive bonus, but I don’t want a head like 1960s waterways detergent foam or head dispensed as a way of serving a short measure.  For that reason, only over-sized glasses are wanted.               

Aroma and Flavours

Is it sweet?  Yes or no.  Bitter. Ditto.  Score both 1 to 5. 

What of aromas and flavours?  Well, at their most basic, what is wrong with “beer”?  Everyone knows what I mean by that, but if I smell or taste anything I recognise, I’ll describe it.  I tend to “get” a few specifics, including:   

Beer!

Fruit (citrus, cherry, peach)

Flowers (elderflower)

Foods (coffee, chocolate)

Chemical (sulphur, chlorine, musty)

Other (roasted/toasted, spicy)

Off-flavours (cabbage, skunk, we dog)

Also the basics of sweet, sour, salt, bitter and (the rather silly-sounding) umami

Bitter and sweet are graded 1 to 5.

Adding these impressions to how a beer feels in the mouth – including degree of fizz – and the feeling as the drink goes down and hits the stomach.   

Impressions

Mouth and stomach feel (smooth, silky, creamy, refreshing, astringent, warming) 

Balance (flavours, aromas, bitterness)

Other Notes: here is where I sneak in personal prejudices that that affect my drinking experience in other ways.  As I see them.  Real or imagined.  Fair or not.

Examples:

Product of large brewery marketed at a loss (to destroy opposition); beer not as described (like “IPA” at AV 3.6%); most canned beers.            

Overall Score (graded 1 to 5)

Score Key:

1 = never again

2 = why bother?

3 = okay

4 = seek out

5 = wonderful.  Plan trips and holidays around locations.

So there we are!  Long-winded for a blog post, but quite good fun to put together and the Criteria seem to work.  For me.  Which was my motivation in the first place. 

Individual tastings will follow.  Earlier tastings will be modified.  

DIM in Progress 03 - Advice

Much laughter echoed through the house recently when N1 (do I need a Blog Glossary?  Of course I do!) called at the back door.  W1 answered and, almost choking with amusement, let me know that Alf wanted to see me.  


“To quote Alf,” she said, with S3 already grinning despite not knowing what his mum found so hilarious, “ ‘Is he in?  My electrics have gone off and he’s much more practical than me.’ ”

That was enough for S3.  He was off and the two of them spent the next few minutes giggling like schoolchildren as I heaved my troublesome spine off the settee and Quasimodoed through the house.

“The power’s off and I’ve no lights, so I thought I’d check it wasn’t just me.”  

I confirmed that we were still connected.

“It’s my lights.  They’ve gone off, upstairs and down.”

Now, as people who know me will testify, I am no electrician (or plasterer, bricklayer, joiner, etc.) but I do have a passing knowledge of how the lethal magic works; along what it does, the dangers, etc. and I do understand the colour coding system for domestic wiring. 

In fact, I used to replace broken light switches, the occasional socket outlet and even fit light fittings up until the incident of the exploding lampshade that showered me with hot shards of glass one summer evening in 1990. 

To this day I have no idea what caused the explosion, beyond knowing something happened to overheat the metal fitting and thus the glass until the latter failed.  The great good fortune on that occasion was that W1 and the boys had only minutes earlier passed through the room on their to the garden.  Also, studying hard and bent over an Open University course book, I suffered no more than first-degree burns from the few small pieces of hot glass falling on the back of my neck.     

I had installed that fitting and since then have done nothing more ambitious with electricity than change fuses.  In plugs.  Not the really dangerous ones lurking under the stairs.  All other electrical work is carried out by John, my personal competent electrician.

Anyway, Alf has a reasonably high opinion of my practical skills for one reasons.  In December 2010 a burst pipe in the loft flooded his house and blew all the electrics.  I visited on request – nobody laughed that day.  It was the shock, I think – and managed to identify the cause.  It wasn’t hard.  Very cold weather and unlagged loft pipework were always going to end in tears and I was able to help remedy the effects.  It was a freezing day and Alf was burning wood in his fireplace, filling the house with smoke and raising the temperature of his lounge by a few degrees above zero.  I located the fusebox and saw several circuit breaker trip switches were in the off position.

“The switches have tripped”.  I let Alf know.  “They can be a bit over-sensitive so if I switch them back you may get power.”

“Go on then.”

I turned my head away (always safety conscious) in the event of explosion and, wondering why I didn’t have a pair of rubber gloves, I squeezed my eyes tight and flicked the switches.

They clicked.  Nothing more.

“Okay.”  I said, feeling a bit like James Bond might, after defusing a bomb. “Try the lights”

“Nothing.”

“The sockets.”

“Still dead.”

“Your boiler.”

Whooosh-thump.  “It came on.”

To reduce an overlong story, the circuit supplying the gas boiler in the kitchen was still good, so Alf was able to heat up the house and start the long process of drying out the wiring and contents.  The power came back by the evening, so he then had electric light.  The interior warmed up to a steamy atmosphere as water evaporated from soaked carpets.  I belatedly asked if the water was off, and Alf said it was.  He had worried about burst pipes all through the cold snap and dumped the contents of his Council compost bin on the front garden so he could drag it indoor and upstairs, filling it from the bath cold tap via a hose as an emergency toilet flushing cistern.

That was all I could do.  I asked if he was insured.  He was, but asked me if a company would pay out, as it was his fault the pipes were unlagged.  I said they probably would – for the water damage, not the pipe replacement or repairs – and he should give it a try. 

The last thing I advised was to get an electrician out as soon as possible to check over the wiring.  “Everything might be working, but might not be safe.”  

Over the next few days, carpets were dragged out and spread over the drive and the car, to freeze solid before, after another week, the air temperature crept above freezing and, ever so slowly, the carpets began to dry out. 

A month later Alf knocked at the back door to let me know the insurance company has sent a cheque for £6000.  No questions asked, no visit by a loss assessor, no need for estimates or receipts.  Just a nice fat cheque.

“The wood floor in the kitchen lifted, but I can stick the bits back down and I’ll get a fitter to stretch the carpets back to fit.  Do you know a plumber?”  I did, and told him.  Also reminded him of the electrician.  I went back indoors that day awash with good karma.

So here I was again.  About to give advice I had no place giving, but this one turned out to be a doddle.  I turned off the main power switch, reset all the circuit switches to “on” and turned the power back on.  Light flooded the house, upstairs and down.

“Did a light bulb blow just before the power went off?”

“Yes, in the front room.”

That was the only light not working.  “There’s the problem.  These trip switches can be a bit sensitive and they click off at any provocation.  Replace the bulb and it will be okay, BUT if it blows again or your power trips off, you need to get an electrician out.”   

I then explained the workings of the electrical distribution board to him and went home, full of another dose of karma and a feeling of competence, to where W1 and S3 were just mopping the last of the tears from their eyes.  I didn’t care.  DIM can be effective even if carried out for others and, provided Alf’s house does not burn down or he ends up electrically traumatised (and four days on both are – or rather are not – still the case) I am calling that (in the argot of Saturday afternoon televised sport) a “result”. 

DIM in Progress 02

Something – perhaps memories of much of a working life spent “in” occupational health and safety – nagged away at me as I scrubbed down the boiler cupboard door with white spirit.

So I looked up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_spirit for details of flashpoint, explosive limits and other pub quiz trivia.   

Alarm bells sounded as years of learning, training, and competent practice kicked in and I thought: 

Flammable substance + oxygen + naked flame = fire triangle = BAD!    

So I switched off the boiler, capped the solvent bottle, opened windows and retired to my Writing Cellar, thus possibly avoiding a ka-boom moment.      

I have lost the natural light, so painting has ceased for the day – at the precise time Italy-England kicked off.  

The above are two examples of serendipity in one day.

And then I went and spoiled it all by doing something stupid like . . . 

Watching the last five minutes of the Italy-England first half. 

DIM in Progress 01

I am over the decorating threshold in that work has re-started over the last week or two and preparation of the dining room is now complete.  Tomorrow there will be more painting, also Monday and perhaps Tuesday and then the room is finished.  

I feel I am on a roll and this must be maintained. 

The lounge challenge presents itself after the kitchen and dining room, which are warm-ups in comparison, and I do not underestimate this mammoth task.  Nor the expense.  Last decorated in June 2002 – the date is clear, since I stopped work long enough to watch key World Cup games, including Beckham’s rehabilitatory performance for England against Argentina – some say the room is long overdue. 

A replacement carpet is being discussed, as are new sofas.  Also that probably means curtains and what D2 describes as “accessories” and I call “cushions and such”.

Gone will be the recent experiences of fifty quid for a room *sighs*, but first we have to get over the colour choice problem.  A small team of consultants has been engaged (comprising all the family member females over the age of eighteen who live in or visit our house) and the decision rests there.     

Yesterday went quite well.  I put a large tube of glue on the floor, knelt on it to hold it steady and cut the nozzle tip off with a Stanley knife.  Cue a spurt of contents across the floor until I took my weight off the tube.  Another rookie error akin to sitting on the tree branch through which one is sawing.  Still, the glue job worked and all the corners and edges of the old wallpaper, curling away from the wall like the stereotype image of a British Rail or transport caff sandwich, are stuck down. 

Next, I opened my sealed tub of ready-mixed plaster and applied it to the bare and crumbling patches of wall within the cupboard I am renovating.  

The plaster fell off. 

I re-applied to a dampened surface, but found I couldn’t smooth it down properly because of the limited space, so . . .

Most of it fell off. 

So in the end I slapped it on barehanded like Neolithic man daubing the wattle of his hut, with plenty of fingertip pressure and dabbing with damp cloth and . . . 

It stayed in place.  The surface will be rustic in appearance, but when dry will take a coat of paint and who cares that much about the interior of the boiler cupboard?

Job done, but another trade struck off the list of those I might try as I seek practical DIM competence.