After yet another night wobbling about in a couple of Wellington's newest "craft beer" pubs, I got to wondering this morning – what happens if your Big Rebellious Movement suddenly wins, there's no more of The Other Thing that was clearly shoddy and poorly made and a piece of shit, and maybe even bad for you, and hazardous to children and kittens?
You could take for example movie franchises like Star Wars. The rebels were constantly fighting the evil Empire and suddenly at the end of the last movie, they won. Then ... what? Non-stop parties with the fierce teddy bear people? Golden bikini contests with Leia and a bunch of other babes? Or perhaps ... boredom? Fighting "the good fight" was suddenly remembered as a lot more exciting, and fun. Now with all this peace and freedom ... what was there do to?
I'm talking specifically about this craft beer business. First of all, what exactly is this?
Well. In a nutshell, and thanks mostly in part to Prohibition, beer went from wonderfully and properly made elixers by true craftsmen who stuck to the four ingredients of beer (Water, Hops, Yeast, and Fun ... oops I mean Malt) to being mostly non-existent during Prohibition.
When the Iron Curtain of No Fun was finally lifted, in stepped weasly business greaseballs like Adolph Coors and the Budweiser brewing company. They cranked out something that vaguely resembled beer, only their concoctions had a bunch of other chemicals in it – like Accelerators (so they could brew it faster) and Preservatives (so it would last longer in storage). And they made it a disconcerting yellow, and with an alarming low alcohol content.
Then they flooded the market with it. In stacks and droves. So even if the small yet dedicated craftsmen of yore could get their products made properly and out there, they were overshadowed and blown out of the water by ... this heinous piss-water.
Similarly in Canada, the Molson and Labatt people fronted up with the same mass-produced swill, flooded the market, and after a generation or two of sheepish Canadian drinkers 'liking it or lumping it', it sadly became the definition of what beer was.
And for many long decades, that was all there was available for the poor downtrodden yet misinformed beer drinker. Sure, a while after prohibition ended, you might be able to find some bizarrely labelled imports from places like Belgium and Czech and England, but they were a lot more expensive. They were made properly, but by now the tastebuds of Joe Beer Swiller were inured to the bland, same-as hideous taste of the mass produced swill. So the chances of people paying MORE for something that wasn't bland and yellow, and that shocked and awed their tastebuds was pretty slim.
Then along about the mid to late 80s, the west coast of the USA (and shortly after, Vancouver in Canada), a small miracle was a-brewing. Craft beer was coming back (aka "micro-brew" beer). It was being made and distributed in stores alongside the Big Mass Produced Swill. It was a bit more expensive ... but suddenly people with a bit more cash on hand were buying it. These were the sorts of people who would buy single-malt scotch instead of some cheap knock-off mixture of stuff like Cutty Sark. These were also the sorts of people who would buy decent wine, instead of the usual liquid-headache-in-a-bottle cheap plonk.
Then along came pubs attached to the micro-breweries – a logical expansion of the idea. If you make it, why not sell it right there, too? This made it fun and a bit pretentious and elite to be within such confines, drinking a beverage that was clearly better than Coors Lite or Bud or Miller (or Blue or Ex or Canadian). You could see the big brewing gear right there, and talk to the brewmaster. You were getting drunk in style.
Exponents of this newish 'craft beer' now had a cause celébre. It wasn't a fight for all things right vs evil and badness, but it was a bit of a trendy struggle to try and get people who drank cheap swill to realise there were better things out there. But while they were wallowing in ignorance, you, you refined drinker of great beer, were awash in the excellence of how good beer could actually be.
It became a bit of a cause, and the activists started to fancy themselves rebels.
This is the sort of thing going on here in Wellington now. Wellington has become the leading edge of the movement to get better 'craft' beer out there and available for all to enjoy. There are loads of brewers now (in my 12 years here I've seen it go from one to maybe 20 or more). Is it good? Absolutely. Is it spendy? You bet. For a bargain night of brain-cell incapacitating, you could rock in to a grocery store here and lay down $10 and get 12 cans or bottles of some bland swill (but with a 5% ABV rating!) that will get the job done.
But if you wanted to do it right, with a good-tasting ale or pilsener or lager or porter or stout – you would spend up and go "craft". And man it is good* – and you can find a type of beer to suit your own tastebuds. And lately, even some bizarre and experimental stuff.
*(Throughout my drinking life, the same cycle or pattern has emerged with every sort of liquor, beer or wine there is – the first type of anything I was given to drink in the early days was the bargain-basement, low-rent, ass-bucket version of the thing. This was obvious with beer, as all we had in the 70s was Molson or Labatt, or if we crossed the river to New York State, Budweiser or Miller or Coors. Then later in life, I get offered a proper version of the thing – in beer's case, it was some excellent microbrew in Vancouver. This has happened with scotch [bar-rail scotch vs single-malt], wine [cheap skanky 2-buck-chuck swill vs excellent varietal], rum [Bacardi's mass-produced gasoline atrocity, vs Appleton's] et al. So no matter what you drink at first, it's likely the shittiest version of that thing ... and if you're lucky, you will eventually get to try the properly-made version of that thing. And chances are, you will say: "Oh, holy SHIT, this is great. THIS is how it's supposed to taste!?" My biggest surprise with this process was tequila – who knew that the evil, benzine-tasting weed killer we all know and despise actually comes in some really excellently made versions? But I digress).
And now most recently, with beer, the emphasis has been on hops. As in: "How many hops can we stuff into a brew to make it even more hoppy, for those who love hops and want more?"
The answer seems to be: there is no limit.
Now, in a bunch of new pubs here featuring nothing BUT craft beer (and at least one pub that makes its own beer on premises), this "Hops madness" is the new sub-rebellion that has splintered off from just the overall "umbrella" cause of craft beer. Now, it's not just: "It has to be craft". It's now: "It has to be so hoppy that all you can taste or breathe for the next day is hops".
Which is good if you like hops. And I do. (But I also enjoy a hearty dark porter or stout on a cooler day, and I enjoy a cheeky pilsener and even a cloudy wheat beer on a hot day). I'm an open-minded drinker (and this also applies to wine, scotch and rum, of notable and noteworthy quality).
But the underlying thing I've noticed is (here we finally get to the point) – the chatter that goes on in these pubs seems hyper-centred on just how amazingly good this all is. Hyper-centred to the point of that person who, for no reason, suddenly shouts out: "I'm NOT CRAZY!" , which of course affirms that, indeed, you are bat-shit insane ...
We gather with friends in these pubs (which is always fun) and everyone orders something different to try (an easy thing to accomplish, as pubs now have vast numbers of taps, due to all the craft beers available now), and forthwith begins the conversation: everyone asks every other person "What do you have? How is that one?" This goes on with the simultaneous undercurrent of "Wow those suckers out there paying good money for shitty [insert name of local mass produced beer here], what fools and poltroons!"
So I wondered – what if, in the not too distant future, we crafty drinkers suddenly win. One day, without warning, the mass-producers of 'swill' switch gears – and now they're turning out their own versions of "craft" beer. And it's good.
Now there's nothing left to mock, taunt and deride. It would be like *gasp* the Toronto Maple Leafs winning the cup.*
*(Do you see what I did there? There isn't even an NHL season this year, and so the Leafs aren't playing, but I STILL found a way to mock them! Also – the two scenarios would be equally impossible to happen.)
What would the legion of beer purists have left? They'd have to actually talk about things other than what astoundingly great beer it is they've chosen, and what rubes and hayseeds everyone else "out there" are for not doing so.
They'd just be beer drinking rebels without a cause.
Well it's just about beer-o'clock. I do believe I'll go have one of the new ones I just heard about ... "Hopcat", or "Double Trouble".
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