This is a question that's been whirring round in my head for a while. It was sort of kickstarted a year or so ago when I stumbled across the PDTNC blog. Adrian is a brewer, and I was particularly taken with his slant on homebrewing - he built a lot of his own homebrew gear, and has also helped others with various bits of kit.
This made me realise that a good (home)brewer wasn't just someone who had a good idea about what might make a good beer, but that they also had a good understanding of the processes that will get you there. A good beer isn't just a good recipe - it's also about the execution of it, and the ability of the brewer to manipulate all the variables in that process, from set-up, through brewing, to clean-up, from the ingredients arriving, to the beer leaving in small or large pack. It's not just about the recipe - its about every step of the way, all the way back to the set-up and purchase of the brewery.
And what of the brewer's job itself? Should that just be confined to the brewhouse? Is it important that brewers are able to talk eloquently about their wares, not just to their peers in the industry, but also to the end consumer? Should brewers be white-coated scientists, or should they be rock stars? Is it necessary, or even desirable, for a brewer to have a microscopic understanding of everything that is going on in the brewing process, so that every batch of beer is the same as the last, or are we prepared to tolerate a few bad batches of usually very good beer, even if those bad batches are brought about by sloppy practice?
When you drink a beer, the way it tastes is the result of a very deliberate set of decisions and precise actions by a brewer. Each bottle of beer you buy in shop, each pint of beer you buy over a bar is a little essay, a story of flavour, aroma, taste and texture, from a brewer to you. Is that liquid love-note enough, or do you want more from your brewers?
What, to you, is a brewer?
Someone which can make a recipee to how they had originally intendent it as, not actually having to be a good beer or not.
ReplyDeleteA good post Zak. Brewers come in all skill levels with various strengths and weaknesses. The good ones know how to brew what they want to brew.
ReplyDeleteA bit of art, a bit of science and maybe a dose of luck?
ReplyDeleteI think of them as a chef. The ingredients are their responsibility, the delivery are their responsibility, but ultimately their biggest impact is bringing the final product together, whether they wrote the recipe or not.
ReplyDeleteOK then Neil - how important is it for a chef to have an understanding of the underlying processes in cooking, even if he doesn't use them all the time?
DeleteTo answer the last question first, I think the beer speaks for itself. If the brewer is also a great marketer or communicator then that is a bonus, but it's down to what they put into bottle, keg or cask when I think of how they should be judged. Sometimes that can be a brilliant control of the hundreds of variables to produce a taste or property that you just didn't expect. It can be the insight to make a beer that is completely different to others, or it can be by taking a well known style and honing it to the point that it becomes the epitome of that style.
ReplyDeleteThe beer comes first and shows imagination, control or some sublime combination of the two.
Thanks for the Linkage, you should really taste some of my thought-out or simple beers.
ReplyDeleteI'm a brewer at home, from idea to finished beer.
I don't directly get to do this at work and I'm not doing beer duty calculations for my living, so I'd not class myself as a Commercial Brewer. Mind you, I've plenty of ideas.
I'm aware that to be a brewer I don't have to have an in-depth knowledge of everything, but I'd like a bit of it sometime, when spare cash and time off allows I shall get myself on a Brewlab course.
There are different levels of "brewer". Talk to someone who's been on the trade for a couple of decades, preferably someone who has worked/is working for industrial brewery and you'll understand that "brewer" is not unlike any other traditional, noble trade like butcher, carpenter, etc. They start as apprentices, doing the most trivial part of the job and as the years go by they learn more skills, are given more responsibilities in the production process until they eventually become Brew Masters.
ReplyDeleteLike with most other traditional trades, now you can teach yourself to be a brewer relatively easy and quicker, attending perhaps a few courses here and there. Whether that is a good thing or not, depends on each person.
So does the transition to brewer come by a process of earning your dues solely through repetition, or is there an accumulation of knowledge built into that?
DeleteLike with any apprenticeship, there is accumulation of knowledge and there is also repetition. The former comes from learning and understanding every step of the process, because you need to know that every step is important and crucial to the quality of the end product. The latter is quite obvious, I think, "you've learnt this new thing, now do it 10 times until you get it right and without mistakes".
DeleteThere are many commercial brewers today that started out as home brewers, very likely, brewing with a kit of extracts, etc. Then they moved on to full grain, and so on, getting the accumulation of knowledge. And the repetition, well there are parts of the brewing process that are pretty much the same no matter what you are brewing (within a certain range of beers, that is).
Sure, but my point is that you don't really learn anything by not making mistakes, you just learn how to get it right the first time - which is fine, until you get a problem!
DeleteI've been a language teacher for more than a decade. Accumulated knowledge and repetition are two of the keys of getting someone to learn a foreign language. You can't teach them simple past until they have got the present tenses right through endless repetition and making mistakes is part of that. I always tell my students that they should not be afraid of making mistakes because they can learn from them, as long as they realise they've made a mistake and understand where the mistake was. To a certain extent, I think it's pretty much the same with brewing. A brewer will cock something up, it happens even to the best ones, the key is knowing what was the cock up and where so it won't happen again and they will know be able to figure that out unless they have enough accumulated knowledge.
DeleteI think you are overly romanticising things. A brewer is someone is who works in a brewery to make beer. Just because you cook your own dinner doesn't make you a chef and just because you put a plaster on your cut finger, that doesn't make you a doctor.
ReplyDeleteOf course I'm over-romanticising things - that's what I do, that's why I've done what I do for the last 12 years, and still get up every day with a smile on my face! You're being overly prosaic and spoiling my fun!
DeleteSeriously though, I'd like to think that a brewer is something more than "someone who brews beer" - I could have looked in a dictionary for that.
I don't think you are over-romanticising, I think this is a bit of a fantasy. Brewing is a trade, just like any other. A brewer is as much a rock star as my tailor is. And, I'll bet there are more carpenters (or plumbers or shoemakers) making craft product than there are brewers.
DeleteI'd go the other way myself: a brewer is anyone who makes beer. This obviously includes a broad range of people, but if you're doing it for a living too right it's desirable to have a microscopic understanding of everything that is going on in the brewing process
ReplyDeleteI'm with "Ed" on this one.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you do it professionally, maybe you do it at home. But whether you make a living at it or do it for pleasure (or simply to avoid the growing wave of overpriced beer) is irrelevant.
Whatever the case, beer (including excellent beer) is not all that difficult to make.
Bottom line: ___if you make beer you are a brewer___.
I personally disagree - I think there's a world of difference between someone who has learned a trade and someone who is a hobbyist. I brew beer at home, but that makes me a home-brewer, not a brewer.
DeleteA beautifully existential post, Avery.
ReplyDeleteA brewer is one that brews. Including tea.
A "good" brewer, homebrew or professional, is someone who has a solid and fairly deep understanding of brewing processes at a fairly technical level, they are familiar and comfortable with the huge range of brewing ingredients, and they truly understand and can apply hygienic processes as a regular part of every day brewing. Needless to say they will also have the practical ability to apply all of this knowledge. A "great" brewer has all of the above but adds in a flair for creation, lack of fear, and an almost intuitive ability to formulate and execute beer recipes.
ReplyDeleteIan - I'd agree with that, and had you also used the phrase "a blend of art and science", you'd have had a bonus mark!
Deletea brewer makes wort, yeast makes beer. our job is to make the best wort we can....,critch the brewer
ReplyDeletei started off as a homebrewer then became a publican ive done brewery courses, but ive learned a damn sight more on the job.