The Session #61: Local? Schmocal!
The question this Session is:
What makes local beer better?
Let's start with defining local beer. Here in the English Midlands.
Locally brewed? Fair enough. But what if the malt comes from Germany and the hops come from New Zealand?
Locally available? OK. But what about if it's brewed in London? Aberdeen? Japan?
Locally better? Well, what if local tradition is a taste you can't stand?
Local is a marketing label which is abstract at best and downright misleading at worst.
The greatest trick local beer ever pulled is convincing the drinker that it ever existed.
Thanks to this Session host, Matt Robinson at Hoosier Beer Geek.
Let's start with defining local beer. Here in the English Midlands.
Locally brewed? Fair enough. But what if the malt comes from Germany and the hops come from New Zealand?
Locally available? OK. But what about if it's brewed in London? Aberdeen? Japan?
Locally better? Well, what if local tradition is a taste you can't stand?
Local is a marketing label which is abstract at best and downright misleading at worst.
The greatest trick local beer ever pulled is convincing the drinker that it ever existed.
Thanks to this Session host, Matt Robinson at Hoosier Beer Geek.
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the session
I was thinking the same thing reading Steve's post about 'local' ie. locally blended, lambic earlier. We're all local to, err... the earth!
ReplyDeleteI respectfully refer to you the comments I respectfully left at Fuggled.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fuggled.net/2012/03/local-really.html
It's drinking time in St. Louis and we're headed out for local beer (could even be one made with malt from Scotland and hops from New Zealand) and then "American Idiot" . . . which probably tells you something right there.
The fact that a beer is made a mile away, ten miles away, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand miles away but can be made with the same sourced hops, malts and yeasts with water treated to a specification means that 'locally brewed' beer had no intrinsic quality nor purpose.
ReplyDelete