Accounting for My Tastes in Beer
In between evenings of losing myself in my annual “big book” (Don Quixote this year), I’ve been reading Terry Theise’s What Makes Wine Worth Drinking: In Praise of the Sublime. Theise makes a compelling case that people who write about wine or who sell wine for a living be forthcoming with their readers and customers about their tastes.
Why Account for Taste?
It’s a simple premise: writers and critics should examine their taste proclivities so that their readers know where they stand. As Theise asserts, this is the first obligation of the critic, whether that person is writing about wine, beer, art, or music. It’s what buttresses our credibility. And, I’d add somewhat paradoxically, it’s what makes our judgments and pronouncements that much more “objective.” (More on that below.)
Unlike Theise, who’s a wine merchant, I’m not in the business of selling my readers beer. But like Theise, I’m also subtly (or maybe not so subtly?) trying to sell you on a particular vision of what beer is or can be, along with the kinds of experiences that make beer worth drinking. That’s why, I think, it makes sense to give you an account of what has shaped my tastes — the beer gardens, Wirtshäuser, beer hikes, beer regions, and beer cities I write so much about — in short, the places that transform the liquid in the bottle or glass into something more.
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Taste. It’s woefully subjective. There’s no accounting for it. But still, I’ll try. In this post, I consider taste broadly, reflecting on the cultural influences that shape taste in general, along with those that have shaped how I approach beer. In a subsequent post due out next week, I turn to the beers themselves.
Theise claims that giving such an account is useful for you, the reader. It’s a kind of exercise in transparency. I’m not sure that these general reflections and my subsequent exploration of the beers I like will be useful to you, but I hope you find them enjoyable and “in good taste.”
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Rating systems: Quantifying Taste
If you recall, I used to award exceptional beers one to three tankards. This was my concession to the general desire for ratings. I’ve never been a fan of ratings. It reduces beer to a number. And I’m even less a fan of crowd-sourced ratings. Be that as it may, I devised a system of sorts to signal to readers that a particular beer merited extra attention.
I’ve since quietly stopped awarding beers tankards, mainly because my system confused people. A brewer once fumed that I had awarded his beer a mere three tankards. To which I replied that three tankards were my highest compliments. Others wondered about all those other beers I wrote about but to which I didn’t award tankards. With very rare exceptions, those beers are very good, and worth trying.
At any rate, even if my tankard system appears to have fallen short of the mark, quantifying taste is not something I’ll embrace anytime soon. Even if I have to score beers for competitions, I just can’t bring myself to reduce beer to a number when I’m writing about it.
Objectivity in a Subjective Key
Beer is an aesthetic object — that is, something we deem good or bad, tasty or not worth drinking. Sometimes we even pronounce a beer beautiful or sublime. As such, beer is resistant to objectivity. We debate the merits of a particular style, or argue over a particular beer or brewery. But as Theise notes, “This doesn’t mean we can’t be objective at all, just that we need to recognize the ineluctable line between that and our inevitable subjectivities” (Theise, 60).
Taste has much more to do with what’s merely in the glass. Labels. Hype. Reputation. Our previous drinking experiences and relative “expertise.” Context. What is both in and on the bottle shapes our tastes beyond our taste buds and olfactory receptors.
Here’s where taste (as physiology) intersects with taste (as culturally coded judgment). Taste is a highly mediated sensuous pleasure. The sense of taste — and all those factors which influence our sense of taste before we even pronounce judgment on a beer — stymies attempts to arrive at anything resembling “pure” and objective aesthetic judgments.
Yet still we strive toward that noble dream of objectivity. Indeed, as beer writers and critics we have to, lest we sacrifice our credibility. As someone who writes about beer semi-professionally — or at least who strives to be professional about my beer writing — I drink all styles of beer, and I try to approach even those styles of which I’m less fond as objectively as I can.
I’m drinking beer at my place with a few friends. One of the IPAs on the table balances harmonious fruit and floral expressions with judicious bitterness and a honeyed malt profile with a touch of toast. It’s flawlessly executed for good measure. No hop burn. No muddled flavours. And well attenuated without the sticky sweetness that seems to cling to so many hazies. I’ve just described my ideal IPA. Those are my subjective tastes coming through.
Let’s assume my friends around the table are all hop heads, and all with discerning palates. They might prefer the more aggressively hopped IPAs, or dank ones, or juice bombs. But they nod in agreement with my take on this particular IPA: this is an “objectively good” beer, even as some of my friends argue for the other IPAs.
Now, American IPA might not be my favourite category of beer, but I attempt to hold my prejudices in abeyance and pronounce a disinterested judgment on the IPAs we’re drinking, albeit a judgment filtered through my own notions of what an ideal IPA should be. What just happened at the table is an example of what Immanuel Kant calls “subjective universality.” As you can see, this is far from the lofty ideal of objectivity, but it’s also far from the more banal proclamation that “all taste is subjective.”
Briefly on the Politics of Taste
Foregrounding your tastes invariably brushes up against the politics of drinking. Some claim that it’s about what’s in the glass, and that’s it. I don’t subscribe to that notion. Be it the food we eat, the car we drive (or don’t), or the beer we drink, our consumption choices are inherently political, even if unconsciously so. And it goes well beyond supporting the brewery down the street.
Suffice it to say, it’s a complicated issue that comprises a beer’s provenance (where it comes from and who brews it), how a brewery navigates social issues, or even how a brewery treats its employees. I don’t drink Founders and I don’t drink BrewDog for some of these reasons.
And then there’s Paulaner’s Salvator, one of the few Doppelbocks I can get reliably in Oklahoma. I enjoy drinking Salvator, and drink it often Stateside. It feels like I’m partaking of a little bit of history when I drink it. But Paulaner is owned by Heineken. When I’m in Munich, I gravitate toward Bocks brewed by independent entities like Ayinger and Andechs. Or I head over to Hop Dog for a selection of Bocks from small Franconian breweries that have been in the family for generations.
Framing Taste
It’s a sunny autumn afternoon and I’ve just arrived in the Oberpfalz, home of Zoigl. I immediately become part of a tableau with Zoigl in the picture, but one that’s also much more than just about the beer. The frame around the tableau encompasses the lively squares and ornate churches, the cobblestone streets that cradle those wonderful Zoigl taverns, the meadows and rolling hills, the colour of the leaves against the sky, the fragrance of the forest as I wander from town to town in search of my next Zoigl.
Does this have a bearing on the beer in the glass? Not directly. But the stuff that surrounds us contributes not only to a region’s culture in general, but also, in some small way, to its beer culture. Reflect upon it a little longer and you’ll start to notice how this culture shapes everything from the procurement of ingredients to decisions about how to brew — decoction, for example, or whether or not to use a coolship or conduct an open fermentation.
Being attentive to these cultural frames helps me paint a fuller picture when I sit down to write about a particular beer or brewery, and not only in traditional beer regions like the Oberpfalz or Franconia. The same holds true for Upper Bavaria, the Belgian countryside, and even the great beer cities of Europe. For me, Prague and Edinburgh are virtually unimaginable without their pubs, or Munich without its beer gardens.
Does all of this cultural stuff make the beer taste “better”? It’s a question I’ve grappled with for years. But the question misses the mark. Instead, it’s more a question of remaining attentive to how these cultural frameworks — from the Wirtshaus and the beer garden to the communal brewhouse and the coolship — have shaped both the beer of a given region and my own taste in beer. Context does matter. And it’s what mitigates against our tendency to reduce beer to a mere object to be evaluated, rated, and scored.
Pilsner Urquell isn’t my favourite Czech Pils, but drinking Urquell in the maze of caves beneath the brewery? That’s something else. Granted, the open-fermented Urquell served from wooden casks in those cavernous cellars isn’t what ends up in bottles, but the sheer experience of being in those caves affects my perception of the beer. Augustiner’s refreshing Märzen isn’t my favourite Central European beer, but just going to the Augustiner in Salzburg and participating in the ritual of selecting a mug, washing it out, and handing it to the man pulling beers from the barrel — this never gets old. And maybe it does make the beer taste a wee bit better.
Prost, everyone! Check back next week for Part II, which delves into the beers I like, and why.
Related Articles
For some earlier reflections on the topic of taste, check out the following posts from the archives:
Drinking Lager in an Age of Extreme Taste
The Uncritical Embrace of Craft Beer?
Tasting Against the Craft Beer Grain
Global Craft Beer on a Sea of IPA: Sameness Masquerading as Choice?
All images by F.D. Hofer
© 2024 Franz D. Hofer and A Tempest in a Tankard. All rights reserved.
I’ve reflected on this for years as well. In terms of evaluating beer, it’s like art; there’s a lot that’s not mere preference. We may ultimately find that certain expressions aren’t personally satisfying, but we can still evaluate them. (Acknowledging the imperfections of the self as observer can actually make the discussion *more* edifying, too.)
I love the second piece of this—the experiential component of beer. Would I rather drink a perfect IPA alone in a sterile taproom, or drink Busch Ice from cans with my father? When I was in Norway drinking farmhouse kveik beer, I turned off my critical apparatus. As when drinking Zoigl beer, it’s not actually the relevant question. Experience is too often discounted. Nice post!
Thanks so much for the kind words, Jeff! Your example of art is bang on. (Though I would argue that sometimes it does have to do with personal preference. For example, I find Jeff Koons’ works to be naught more than cutesy and kitschy “art” shot through with consumerism. I know that his shows are blockbusters, and that his “art” commands top dollar, but I see the entire edifice behind his artwork to be so problematic that any evaluation I were to write would already be coloured by my preconceptions.)
In general, though, I completely agree with you. I may be in the minority in finding the clean lines of Greco-Roman art and architecture less appealing than the voluptuousness of the Baroque, but I can still enjoy a day out at the Altes Museum in Berlin taking in and casually “evaluating” the sculptures and vases.
When I think more about it, it’s fascinating that even that kind of taste (taste in art, taste in architecture) has a history. One example: in the wake of the Napoleonic era, Gothic architecture in France was generally neglected, monuments such as Notre Dame were falling into disrepair, and entire medieval neighbourhoods were being razed at the dawn of modernity. It wasn’t until one Victor Hugo stepped into the breach with his Hunchback of Notre Dame that both the intelligentsia and the general public acquired a new appreciation of this heritage that was crumbling before their eyes.
The second part of your comment is bang on as well. Love it! You drinking Busch Ice with your father reminds me of drinking Kokanee with my dad whenever I’m in BC for a visit. It’s our grilling beer. And drinking farmhouse kveik beer in Norway: I totally hear you about those times when we try to still our critical faculties and just be present with the moment.
Cheers for the opportunity to engage with your thoughtful insights over my morning coffee!
🙂
Franz,
Excellent piece and I appreciate your transparency. I’ll admit that I gravitate toward your writing because I enjoy many of the styles of beer you write about but will probably never have the opportunity to drink them where they originate. I “settle” for the best imitations I can find from my local breweries. You mention Pilsner Urquell and Paulaner Salvator. Because of writers like you and Jeff Alworth, I can enjoy those beers in my own setting and also get a sense of the history and context they bring with them. Obviously, it’s a challenge to leave biases and subjectivity out of a process that is mostly subjective, but you do a great job of it. I enjoy the challenge of reviewing and rating beers across different styles even though I have my own preferences. It seems to enhance my enjoyment of the beers I prefer when I return to them. I can only deal with so many NEIPA’s until that Vienna Lager tastes like pure gold! Can wait to read about the beers you like and why. Keep up the great writing.
David in North Georgia
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, David! Judging by your Instagram feed, we certainly do have similar tastes in beer. I guess in some ways I don’t leave my biases completely out of the process. You don’t see me writing about IPAs that often. But yeah, when I do come across American-style IPAs or pale ales at Central European breweries, I try to give them a fair shake. And given what I do with the blog and such, I drink everything. At the end of the day, there aren’t too many beer styles I DON’T like. If I rip on IPAs when I’m out for drinks with friends, it’s more because I see the category as overly hyped and overrated. Prost!
Excellent article. Looking forward to part 2.
And yes – the places we drink beer, the people we drink them with, the weather, the mood, even the music in the background can all make the beer taste better.
Even a bog-standard Euro lager can taste wonderful on a sunny day on the beach on your first day of the summer holiday in Greece or Spain.
So glad you enjoyed reading the article, Franz! (And it’s not all that often I come across someone outside of Austria or Bavaria with the same name as me).
True, all those things you mention can have a profound effect on how something tastes. It’s why I keep coming back to my example of the Augustiner in Salzburg. I’d never make a pilgrimage there on account of the beer, but I do go there religiously every time I’m in Europe. When I’ve written about the place at length, I don’t think I’ve ever really delved all that deeply into the beer itself. Rather, it’s the ritual of going there (crossing the foot bridge and seeing the old monastery church on the rise), and the ritual of being there (getting your beer and food, finding a place in either the beer garden or beer hall) that makes the place itself among my favourite places for a beer anywhere. I got to introduce my 20-year-old niece and her travel companion to the Augustiner this past November. That was fun.
Part II is due out later today.
Hi Franz,
Hope all is well.
Wonderful read, as usual.
I would have kept the tankards. It’s on the (intelligent) reader to interpret them as a subjective take from an experienced drinker.
Perhaps it’s my love of Rick Steve’s and how much time his ratings have saved me; when other guides list 200 things to do, Rick as a few 3 stars and some 2 stars.
Can drink’em all, and ratings are a way to narrow down drinking experiences.
A big hug!
R
A vote for the tankards! I’m contemplating doing something similar in my book to help narrow things down, precisely for the reasons you mention. At the same time, though, I’m aware of how those kinds of rankings influence my own perceptions out of the gate when I’m reading a guidebook or website (and how they could influence my readers’ perceptions, potentially short-changing a perfectly nice place that didn’t get a tankard). Quite often I’ve gone to “highly rated” places and found them to be duds; conversely, I’ve gone to places weren’t rated that high in a particular book or on a particular site and loved them. But yeah, even if I don’t have tankard ratings in the book, I might include things like “my 25 favourite beer gardens,” “my 50 favourite beers,” and the like. Incidentally, I’m sending up a trial balloon in Part II of this article, which should go live later today. I’m including a list of my favourite beers from the past year.
An excellent read!
I think an awful lot about how the culture surrounding a particular beer drinking experience impacts the perception of the beer itself. Take for example the many Czech style beers being made in the US these days, I would love to be able to do a side by side tasting of those beers in an authentically Czech environment, to see if they live up to the Czech proverb that the “brewer brews the beer, the tapster makes it”. When I sit in one of my local pubs that regularly has such beers on tap, I find myself wishing I was sat in a Czech boozer, preferably outside the tourist traps of Prague 1, 2, and the posh bits of 3, somewhere in Zizkov perhaps, somewhere more identifiably Czech than blandly international. Would the beer be improved by being served at a non-American temperature and carbonation level? Maybe this is part of my beef with a lot of beer scenes (and I abhor going to places that are a scene), they import the form but not the soul, bewitched by mythological origin, and tradition, stories peddled by marketers.
Thanks for the words of encouragement, Alistair! I agree with what you have to say about beer scenes. I have no problem with folks being inspired by the food, beer, or wine of somewhere else — life would be pretty boring otherwise, and we’d all be consigned to eating and drinking the same old same ole in our respective regions — but you’re bang on with your critique of people who “appropriate” a culture without understanding it.
Franz,
Interesting as always, and having judged with you I have found you pretty objective. You comments in this column support that.
Out of curiosity I noticed one of the pictures had a Jewish star on the wall. Did I miss a comment in the column on that? I do tend to read fast. Seems like there must be a story there, historical reason. I know writing about that might distract from your focus, but doth seem a curious question. Also I’m sure it would be part of the setting one drinks in having some influence on the experience. For me my curiosity might make ne ask the owners and enjoy the place even more, depending on no intended negative reasons.
Ken Carman
Hi Ken, nice to hear from you! And apologies for the belated reply. I’ve been on the road these past several weeks (including 6 weeks in Germany), and haven’t had too many spare moments. What you saw in the article is the Zoigl star, which is hung outside of Zoiglstuben in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria when the tavern has beer to serve. The star does bear a striking resemblance to the Star of David, but this brewing symblol predates the emergence of the Star of David in late-medieval Prague. (Matthias Trum of Schlenkerla has written about this.) Here’s something I posted on Facebook about it a few years back:
https://www.facebook.com/tempestinatankard/posts/pfbid02zKd53NFYKdAKoz32D94jC5tdfVH25HD9EXGje719fEfFUaZncbccMCJMtBMQVCTxl