Beer Radar
By John Kruger
“Yes, but have you actually tasted this?”
(First published by Wine Business Magazine in 2012)
…is a question I almost blurt out quite often, but I stifle it and nod. It’s the first response after tasting a very occasional new commercial beer that’s pretty damn rough around the edges. It’s usually a beer from a new small time operation but not always. I know tasting is all very individual and one man’s Champagne is another man’s low-carb light beer. Unfortunately there’s always a shocker waiting in that bottle shop beer fridge for me. Sometimes it’s a fermentation issue, or a sparge issue, sometimes I wonder if some brewers think that using old hops will be fine, but the oxidised cheesy character isn’t always complimentary to the style. Sadly, it’s the hop driven beers that sometimes get the stale hops instead of fresh sappy aromatic hops. If the beer is supposed to be conditioned; before adding another 3 big-screen TV’s to the bar area, please at least consider if that money would be better spent on longer conditioning for the beer. It seems as if the quality of the product slips down the list of priorities for some brewers, where I’d consider it to be permanently number one and well above the live band nights and Facebook campaign.
I find it hard to give people a response to their beer because some people in the brewing business just want to share the beer love, not get a critical response to a friendly gesture. That’s why some people prefer the anonymous feedback from a competition rather that a razor sharp critique from a friend or loved one.
I can understand how the occasional dodgy beer slips through into the market in the heat of running a small brewery passionately. You love your beer so much, that’s all you drink and your blinkers go on, but tunnel vision doesn’t give a very helpful view of uncharted terrain. Good brewers constantly get feedback from as many people as possible and I’ve also noticed that successful brewers, sometimes surreptitiously, drink a lot of other people’s beers. It’s not just for market research; it also keeps the palate stimulated. Unfortunately the newly commercial brewers often seem to be asking the wrong questions. Instead of pouring a good friend another free beer and asking him or her, “Hey, what do you think of this?” Where the answer is an amazingly enthusiastic and positive response like “Oh this is amazing, it’s so good. Would you mind pouring me another free beer please? You really should start selling this after I’ve left.”
A more realistic question you should be asking is “Hey, would you pay eight bucks for a glass of this? If you did, how many do you think you’d buy?” Then the answers come back from a very different angle. All of a sudden it’s not an ego stroking, free beer inducing response, but the kind of answer a business owner should be hearing.
“Well actually, this beer has a funny medicinal background taste and there’s also a dry husky harshness going on, but it’s cold and drinkable.” might be a more realistic response when the weight of a person’s wallet is thrown into the mix.
One SA brewer changed one of his beer recipes directly in response to some fairly minor comments left by an anonymous beer judge in a large competition for commercial beers. The next year the brewer entered the resulting beer from the new recipe and won gold. The same brewer is also known to religiously work the taps at night. Not because he’s too tight to hire more bar staff, but because he listens to every comment every customer makes about the beers. He’s not trying to turn the brewery into the biggest business ever, he just wants to be known for damn good beer, and it’s working.
In the grand scheme of things, that’s what we lovers of a pint of ale or a crisp lager want; damn good beers. The promotions, the hats and cheap sunglasses, the sporting and events sponsorships are all secondary and very short term in the memory compared to the primary thing of importance, the beer. Get that right and when you do, please let me know about it.
