Ok, a little bit of a rant this week
Why does swill get no respect? The question comes up from time to time. Lager in general getting no respect is just stupid, but to me there is a qualitative difference between lagers in general – many of which are excellent – and swill. I hate it when I hear that big macrobrewery brewmasters are the best brewers in the world. They aren’t. If they were any good, they would make good beer. And swill, frankly, does not cut it. It’s boring, which is the greatest sin a beer can have. Beer is a product intended for pleasure. Somewhere along the way, the interpretation of “pleasure” went from tasting great and having alcohol to simply having alcohol. Anybody participating in the discourse of defending macrobrewers and their alleged talents is failing miserably to recognize this shift in public consciousness and its destructive effects.
I am thinking about this in relation to a couple of things. The first is that we had a good beer from our stash last night. We have in the past month done a taste test of all the pale industrial lagers available in Malaysia and deemed almost all of them to be terrible quality. Carlsberg and Tsingtao might be the only two that are actually drinkable. Well, we’re sick of Carlsberg after three whole weeks of drinking it and Tsingtao costs more money than can reasonably be justified. So this leaves us in a bind. Macrobrewers are not producing beers that can be enjoyed for pleasure. Inebriation is fine, but I can get that from any number of beverages. When I want beer, it’s a certain kind of pleasure that I seek.
The other reason I’m considering this particular issue right now is that it segues into something that I think is worth considering from a public policy perspective. Beer in particular but also alcohol in general has become a means to bring about drunkenness. That’s it. No enjoyment of the beverage, not for all but the highest-end stuff. This is completely ridiculous, but it is not hard to point to a few key influencers that have brought about this situation.
You see this problem at its worst in nations where people have very little in the way of food tradition. England, Scandinavia and North America are the worst offenders. Terrible attitudes towards alcohol deriving from equally lousy attitudes towards food. Pleasure is not a part of the equation…that’s part of the Protestant tradition I guess.
Governments also contribute to this. Prohibition was a nasty bit of business that killed small brewing. Giant industrial brewers were all that could survive that public policy disaster and they all ended up adopting a low cost strategy. Social trends that have caused the beer market to stagnate only make the problem worse, leading to consolidation and cost-cutting. The governments only made the issue worse by setting up laws that discouraged the development of small brewers. It was only when these laws began to fall – starting with homebrewing laws – that small brewers began to re-emerge.
The areas with the worst problems for binge drinking, drunk driving and other stupidity are not surprisingly the same ones with the most restrictive alcohol laws, the highest taxes and the highest level of protection for the big brewers. Apparently this is rocket science – by promoting an approach to alcohol that treats it as a means to get drunk only, government sends a message to society that this is the only role alcohol can play. The most restrictive regimes therefore have the worst drinking problems. With intelligent government, the connection would be easy to draw. With unintelligent government, or worse government with an agenda (either a religion-derived puritan agenda or a pro-big-brewer agenda) the feedback loop becomes worse because that government sees a lot of binge-drinking and tries to crack down further, with more restrictions and even higher taxes. Such governments, in the name of discouraging binge drinking, are in fact encouraging it.
So what does this have to do with swill and its brewers? That’s who benefits from poor government policy. They market alcohol as a drug, not beer as a flavourful beverage. There is a big difference between the two. So if swill lagers get no respect, it is because they have earned no respect. You don’t get points for showing up. You don’t get points for alleged consistency (a myth) and you don’t get points as the maker of a beverage for being a good button-pusher. If big brewers want credit, the proof needs to be the glass. A glass of beer I can drink more than one of. A glass of beer I won’t get sick of if I have more than two a week. A glass of beer that can be enjoyed for its flavor, not just the alcohol. Talk is cheap – prove it in the beer. Until then, beer geeks can and will knock big brewery swill and not only have the right to do so, but are right in doing so.
6 Comments to “Ok, a little bit of a rant this week”
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word! i couldn’t have said it better! and i whole heartedly agree.
Preach on brother
Beer writers picking on swill is like trying to nail jello to the wall. What’s the point?
This is the story: Why aren’t “brewmasters” more adventuresome?
Like, let’s say, Labatts actually made something that DOESN’T taste like Labatts – would they be weakening their brand? Syphoning clients away or gaining marketshare?
Keeping shareholders happy is all that matters, no? Isn’t this the under-lying functions of macros? It’s rather puzzling.
So – lager ain’t just lager. Lager is mass-market acceptance. Yet, shit lager is swill. And 90% of the beer out there is swill.
Therefore – why do most MICROS “create” a swill to compete? That ain’t where they’re at. Get your 10% share and work it. There is lots to be made.
Furthermore, and I just want to put this out there…. Phillips Pheonix Gold Lager SUCKS like a sack of smashed assholes. Though they’ve got credibility elsewhere (in IPAs and dark malted beers) – why keep making this crap?
@CapFlu, most macros aren’t making their shareholders too happy these days – declining market shares, shrinking margins, neverending tax increases that take away the “low cost” element of their low cost strategies. I could and should write an article about macro business practices and why they are having so many problems (besides the quality of the beer, though that is part of it).
The point where that would intersect with today’s article is that the big brewers actually have a lot of say in terms of policy (especially in Canada!) so they are part of the problem here for helping to set up a system that treats beer as nothing more than a regulated drug. A whole other article can talk about why wine is not treated like a regulated drug.
Interesting post, but I disagree on a couple points. Firstly, alcohol has always been a way to bring about drunkeness. To insinuate this is something new or recent or is a result of macrobreweries is foolish. This will happen whether or not swill exists. Swill just makes it more cost effective. Enjoyment is also a relative term. The question is are you getting enjoyment from the flavor of your beverage or from the effects the beverage causes or both? There is some merit in your comment about culture combined with food and drink, but lets face it, some of the most ancient and revered cultures are capable of creating some of the most retched brews we’ve ever had. Moreover, I feel the lack of rigid history in the U.S. has allowed brewers greater freedom to express themselves through their beer. I think you are spot on about government’s contribution. In the U.S., we have no one to blame but ourselves to some degree as we are a country “of the people”. If everyone who loved craft beer (including brewers, distributions, and drinkers) came together to form a lobby, it conceivably could be very influential. Lastly, swill does get respect. Not from us, but from all the people who buy it. They buy it becasue they like it. They buy it because they don’t have an adept palate. They buy it because they are cheap. Proof as you say, is in the glass. Don’t get angry, just don’t drink it. At all. Getting mad about them brewing bad beer is like getting mad at a restaurant for having something on the menu you don’t care for. Continue to make every effort to get others to try and enjoy a brew that is quality made and has good flavor.