There's a recent trend in the craft beer industry where breweries brew big bold beers in limited quantity and people like me hunt and hunt for it as if it's a rare diamond. In some cases the kill is worth the hunt, but in more cases for me lately it hasn't been. Now, before some readers think well, you just don't know good beer (and maybe I don't) I think that we need to take a step back. Quality, really can't be defined or rated. You can subjectively on scale attempt to quantify a qualitative or subjective experience but really, what's the point? I have come to realize in my life that quality is truly in the eye of the beholder. I think this realization came to me from multiple readings of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In this novel one area Robert Pirsig explores is quality. "'Quality,' or 'value,'as described by Pirsig, cannot be defined because it empiricallyprecedes any intellectual constructions. It is the "knife-edge" of experience, known to all. "What distinguishes good and bad writing? Do we need to ask this question of Lysias or anyone else who ever did write anything?" (Plato's Phaedrus, 258d). Likening it with the Tao, Pirsig believes that Quality is the fundamental force in the universe stimulating everything from atoms to animals to evolve and incorporate ever greater levels of Quality. According to the MOQ, everything (including the mind, ideas, and matter) is a product and a result of Quality." (Wikipedia)
So really, what is good beer? Why all the hype around ratings? Why create false demand for a beer that for some will be a waste of time? I ask these questions as a marketer and consumer. Now, society tells us what is good...right? What's in style, what's not...who's popular, who's not. Societal trends are studied by another book I am referencing in this conversation, The Tipping Point, by Malcom Gladwell. If it is raters and beer advocates like those at the throw down last week, that are the influencers and create demand, and popularity and drive trends from say porters to wild ales then the rare beer is the marketers dream. Their perception of quality and influence on the market will slowly drive more breweries to try to compete, to differentiate and thus expand and create on a new style. This is what is truly amazing about business and commerce. As we sit and espouse on the chocolate undertones and hop aroma of beers, the majority of beer drinkers are cracking a bud light and not thinking twice. Are they drinking sub-quality beer? In my mind yes, in there's no. Does this make them wrong, no. Does it make me right? (of course it does) No. What I'm trying to say is yes, I got to have five of the Top Rated Beers in the US over the last few months. Yes, some where good but really...nothing better than some other.great.beers. When I think of quality beer, I am not rating the hop character, or aroma, how thick the head is or if the color is right. I am rating on, if I enjoy it, and am I having fun drinking it. It's like why would I want a $100 bottle of wine or champagne or a bottle of Westy 12 and then sit at home and drink it alone?
This gets me back to Zen. In Zen Pirsig talked about static and dynamic quality. (trust me I'm getting somewhere in this rambling, really...) Static quality is that which can truely be measured. (e.g., patterns in nature, behaviors, beer qualities, etc.) Whereas dynamic quality is everything else, that which is not static. It's the dynamic qualities of beer and life that I seek out. It's those experiences that I think make a beer quality. It's the feeling it gives you inside, the memories, the conversations, the laughter.
I'm saying this because all the beers I tasted last week were quality beers. I didn't turn one down for off flavor, or bad aroma and for not meeting the static quality that is expected with these beers. There were some that well, on static quality alone, weren't worth the hype if you asked me. I won't be hunting for them anytime soon. The others, the ones that were shared as "their only bottle" or saved and aged for seven years after bringing it home from England in my suitcase. Those are the quality beers, the experiences that when tasting, drinking and discussing that I won't soon forget. That's what makes them good beers.
