The Session #111: Round Up (Part 1)

(Preamble: if the Session continues to stick around for a while, I think the submission period should be a week [first Friday of the month to second Friday of the month]. I got a lot of great entries well after the Friday deadline. 2 cents.)

I suppose I should have been a little clearer in my description of the Session topic. I wasn’t (as Stan Hieronymus hinted at) experiencing an actual mid-life crisis with existential meltdowns and brightly colored Corvettes. I’m only 30, and my life is pretty damn good. It was more a mid-hobby crisis. Fortunately, it seemed a topic lots of people wanted to discuss, and lead to some very thought provoking posts.

The good news: aside from a few outliers, pretty much everyone responded with, “It’s not beer, it’s you, Oliver. Get over it or get out of it.” It’s reassuring to hear, as it means the industry isn’t collapsing under its own weight, as I had oh so hyperbolically thought. It’s also reassuring on a personal level, as it means my own beer writing salvation is but some time and introspection away.

But I digress. Back to the matter at hand. We had sixteen (16!) entries this month. I did my best to corral all the entries from the different media streams, but my apologies if I missed you. Shoot me an email or tweet if I did, and I’ll amend the recap.

I’m also splitting this into two posts, as each roundup ran nearly ~1500 words and I don’t want to kill people with walls of text. Here we go!

Boak and Bailey, our blogger friends from across the pond, responded first, describing their version of lagging beer interest as a “Wobble” (with some excellent use of Willy Wonka lyrics to open). Despite being jaded, they weathered the wobble, and found their enthusiasm for the drink and industry revitalized. To those feeling wubbly or wibbly or wobbly, they suggest one of two courses of action: 1) “Leave the learning and exploring phase and enter steady state” (read: enjoy your beer and the fact that you know too much about it peacefully) or 2) “Embrace the mania fully” (and be “that” beer guy). I won’t deny the appeal of the first, but the second seems far more fulfilling, if a tad more annoying to your friends and family.

In what I believe is a Session first, Michael Kiser of Good Beer Hunting chimed in. Mr. Kiser flattered me enormously (yay!) but then directly disagreed with my assessment of the state of the beer union (boo! just kidding). He goes on to describe himself as ripe for an aforementioned actual mid-life crisis, but feels beer has been his agua de vida in ways, and his connections to the people that define the future of the industry are what keep him excited. An anecdote from the Craft Brewers Conference showed a natural juxtaposition between those who view new breweries as competition, and those who seem them as opportunity. As writers, we are the latter, and if Michael taught me anything here, it’s that I should ignore the political industry noise and embrace the new people and perspectives: “when they look across the tap lineup at their neighborhood bar, they don’t see AB or MillerCoors. They see you.”

On that note, Tom Cizauskas of “Yours for Good Fermentables” wrote a post titled simply: “Enjoy the beer, forget the hype.” Tom got this idea rolling early, with a comment on Alan McLeod’s reaction to my initial Session announcement:

“There’s beer as a business; beer as tax revenue; beer as science and technology; beer as one (small) study point in history; beer as an alcohol delivery system; beer as a diverting avocation. Each except the last is specific to a limited concern. A loss of interest in the last calls for a new hobby. There’s little semiotic about it.”

I want to thank Tom, as this is something I really needed to hear. I have a tendency to over-analyze and over-internalize, seeking meaning and the resulting epiphanies constantly, even where there might not be any. Especially related to those things I’m most passionate about. In his post, Tom encourages us to assuage our ennui by letting go – of “craft” and solipsistic declarations of identity – and instead “meditate on the joyful pleasure implied by the simple phrase: “Let’s go grab a beer.”” This is good advice that I plan to follow.

In his expected form, Alan McLeod gave us a post with a touch of history and some great insight, including this, which hit home for me:

“Good beer writing should be directly dependent on an interest in beer and brewing. But there seems, if social media reporting on tavern and bar attendance at #CBC16 is anything to go by, to be the idea that a commitment to daily strong drink is a requirement as well. Why is that?”

I find myself drinking much less these days, and if my thinking is aligned with that implied in Alan’s quote, perhaps that explains my disconnected feeling. But he makes a good point. You don’t need to be a lush to write about beer. In fact, clearer heads probably lead to better writing. He goes on to suggest that beer writing has been pigeon-holed and “framed too narrowly.” I can’t disagree.  His closing is wonderful advice for any beer writer, from newbie to veteran:

“Once you realize that you do not need to join the herd, you may see there is so much more to explore. Once you realize so much of what’s touted in the glass is overpriced yawn water you can detach yourself from the need to impress – or be impressed – and explore this massively rich but still largely untouched seam of human experience, the lode of beer and brewing.”

+100 internet points to Bryan Roth for being the only other blogger than me to use Lionel Richie lyrics in his Session post title. Given some time to digest the other entries first, Bryan noted how he’s actually feeling great about his place in the beer world, finally realizing that his remote pipe-dream of being a functioning member of the industry is now, some years later, a very near reality. He echoes Michael Kiser’s comments about 2000 new breweries meaning 2000 new opportunities to meet new people and see new places, and more and more space to grow and write about they myriad aspects of beer. Bryan is a perfect example of Boak and Bailey’s advice to embrace the mania. I dig it.

The Beer Nut (the special Irish variant, not to be confused with the 250,000 American imitations) opened his post with an acknowledgement that he has witnessed a steady thinning or his beer blog RSS feed. He then goes on to explain that he doesn’t feel his energy or enthusiasm waning, part in thanks to keeping “governing rules:” his regular posting schedule keeps him too busy to get introspective and worry about silly things like a beer mid-life crisis. As someone whose blogging schedule is little more than what comes to him in the shower that morning, I can’t help but envy his discipline. He even adheres to his own rules in the Session entry, giving us brief introductions to five Irish beauties. This particular line stuck with me, as I had blamed this concept in part for my flagging interests:

“the industry itself (at least in the US where Oliver is) seems to be suffering a bit of an upheaval. It’s hard to know where you stand as a fanboy blogger when your favourite brewery is liable to be snatched away from you by a grasping multinational”

Gary of “Beer et seq” noted that to him, keeping interest in beer is all about taste. Literally. Gustatorily. He posits that flavors define the mystery:

“It never really ends, there is always more to learn. The beer palate is the core of it for me.”

I agree with Gary. All manner of information and ideas can be derived from how any why a beer got to its final, taste-laden form. Going back to ones roots to focus on what matters (to you, specifically) is usually a healthy recommendation. I would more likely return to homebrewing and recipe building, but really, all things considered, that would just be the other side to the same coin: refining your love and continuing your search for those elusive, ideal tastes.

Barry Masterson (friend of the Beer Nut, and also an Irish expat living in Germany) says in his post a lot of what I’ve been feeling. Like me, he had many conflicting obligations (pesky “jobs” and “responsibilities”) going on in his life that kept him from going all-in on beer, until, as he puts it, “With my lack of time and money, to a degree it felt like watching from the outside.” It’s as if Barry took those words out of my brain and put them into his own. There’s nothing quite like being completely immersed in something then taking a step back for unrelated reasons, to make you feel like an impostor and outsider where you once felt part of the inner clique (weird and shallow, I know, but honest I hope). Also like me, Barry never actually lost the love his love for new beers or brewing in all of this, despite his cynicism. Barry closes with some good news: if I’m really anything like him, I’ll rebound soon enough, if not quite in the same capacity as I did before.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2!

So you want to be a Beer Writer? – Yeast 101

Uh oh. Your homebrewing buddy just said something about “brett” and is asking your opinion about buying a stir plate. This conversation is getting dangerously yeasty.

But that’s OK! I’m here to help put the “you” back in “Eukaryote” with a primer about yeast, and why it’s so damn important to beer.

Much like the other posts in this series, this primer will cover the basics (yes, I left quite a bit out) for those who want to write (or speak) with a little more confidence. If you’re looking for a journey to the center of fermentation, check out Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff’s book from Brewer’s Publications.

Yeast as a Living Thing

Yeast is literally everywhere. You breathed some in just now. You probably ate some that was resting on your lunch. The little buggers are all up in your shit (literally), and play an important bit part in maintaining your body’s homeostasis. Fret not; it’s an integral part of our immune system and you’d have to ingest a very large amount of it to experience any ill effects (see: auto-brewery syndrome).

Biologically, yeast falls under the Fungi kingdom (here’s a quick reference if you forgot your high school taxonomy). They are technically eukaryotic (meaning their cells contain a nucleus that houses genetic information), but are the only single-cell eukaryote ever described by science. Despite any deeply romantic feelings you may have developed for your favorite IPA, yeast reproduces asexually, through the very painful-looking process of mitosis.

It’s tricky to organize yeast because they don’t all fit under one taxonomic group. But generally (please don’t kill me, biologists reading this) the yeast we use to brew can be classified by species, which are often sold to brewers as strains. Homebrewers and bakers will be familiar with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is probably the mostly commonly used yeast in ale. Lagers use Saccharomyces pastorianus. Then there’s the popular Brettanomyces, which is known for its distinctive and sort of gross qualities.

But that’s just a few, easy to recognize examples. There are ~1500 described strains of yeast, many of which we don’t use in brewing. The yeast in our bodies – often responsible for a number of nasty infections – is called Candida albicans. In healthy humans, this yeast is kept in check by bacteria. Fun fact: lactobacillus, a bacteria use to make some kinds of sour beer and sourdough bread, is one of the natural counter-balances to the yeast that grows in our guts.

Somewhat amazingly, we didn’t even know that yeast was a thing until one very cool French dude named Louis Pasteur described yeast and what is does in 1857. Although a scientist named Leeuwenhoeck (yea, I have no idea how to pronounce that, either) visually saw yeast in 1680, he didn’t really know what is was. Prior to Pasteur’s badass book, “The Diseases of Beer, Their Causes, and the Means of Preventing Them” some people assumed fermentation was spontaneous, and as White and Zainasheff note in their book, some people even thought it was the work of god(s).

Wooden brewing paddles were passed down through generations of brewers, all of who were apparently oblivious to the fact that wood was porous, and that the yeast from previous batches of beer were hiding deep inside all of their tools, just waiting to inoculate the next batch.

Yeast as a Brewing Ingredient

There’s a classic quote beer writers should know:

“We brewers don’t make beer, we just get all the ingredients together and the beer makes itself.” — Fritz Maytag

Yeast is going to do its thing regardless of what we do. The brewer’s job is more interior decorator than creator: she needs to turn the wort into a welcome, clean, inviting home that the yeast want to move into to start their family. But the yeast aren’t picky; they’ll move into any home that’s got plenty of sugar to eat, even one infested with other nasty tenants of less reputable backgrounds. The brewer has to do everything she can to make sure the yeast and its family are the only ones living in the house, and that they’re as healthy and comfortable as possible.

Yeast can come from third party labs as dry cells, or ready-to-use liquid. While pre-packaged yeast can be used (I’ve used it dozens of times), many brewers will create a yeast “starter.” This is basically a sugary proto-beer that kick starts the growth of the yeast. A starter ensures you’ve got plenty of healthy yeast to begin and maintain a strong primary fermentation. Some companies sell “smack packs” which are a sort of all-in-one starter (that includes an activator) where you just “smack” the bag of yeast to mix up the contents and create a mini early fermentation before pitching it into the wort.

Logistically, yeast is added after the wort has been boiled, hops have been added, and the combined concoction has been cooled. The drop in temperature in very important: yeast are living things, and adding them to hot liquid can easily injure or kill them. To properly reproduce, yeast need oxygen, so wort is aerated. This is tricky, because oxygen is a mortal enemy to fermented beer.

Oxygen before yeast? Good! Oxygen after yeast? Bad!

Yeast’s primary role is to eat the sugars extracted from the base malts during mash, and turn them into ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide (C02). That’s an incredible oversimplification though; the amount, type, and length of sugars, the temperature of the fermenting beer, and the type of yeast used all dictate how the yeast will perform. Fermentation is what makes beer taste like beer; you couldn’t just add alcohol to hopped-wort and expect beer. Yeast is responsible for hundreds of other compounds that produce flavors we’re all familiar with (banana and clove and fruit esters, oh my!)

Yeast is the prime mover for the Original Gravity (OG) and Final Gravity (FG) equation. By measuring the original amount of sugar in the beer, and the comparing it to the final amount when fermentation in done, a brewer can calculate how much sugar is left in the beer, how much was eaten by the yeast, and how much alcohol it created. The amount of sugar the yeast ate is also called the amount of “attenuation.”

The trick to remembering the difference between ale and lager is that they are brewed using different yeasts (see above). Ale yeast ferments “on top” of the beer, while lager yeast ferments “on the bottom.” This is not a perfect rule. Yeast generally moves through the entire body of the fermenting beer, but this describes where “most” of the fermentation activity occurs.

More important than where they ferment is how they ferment; ale yeasts prefer warmer temperatures (55-70° F), while lager yeasts prefer colder temperatures (40° F). Ale yeast would go dormant and sleepy at such cold temperatures, but certain strains of lager yeast can and will ferment at higher temperatures, resulting in estery, fruity lagers a la “Steam Beer.”

Yeast as a Word

Yeast is almost always a noun. While I’m sure some intrepid wordworker could use yeast as a verb (I may be guilty of that), “yeasted” and “yeasting” don’t exist in a traditional vocabulary.

While it can be used as an adjective (yeasty) I’d warn against using it too often, because like “malty” or “hoppy,” it’s not overly descriptive. It functions perfectly well as a general label, but different yeasts perform and taste different, so when describing it, try to pull out words that capture the essence of what the yeast has done to the beer, not just that it is in fact, in there.

Writing about yeast tends to get biological very quickly, so be sure to balance your diction appropriately. No one wants to read a text book, but no one wants juicy scientific details left out either. Above all, respect yeast’s role in making beer, and remember that even though it’s not as glamorized and talked about as hops (or even malt), it’s (arguably) the single most taste-defining ingredient in the entire brewing process.

Don’t believe me? Try drinking straight, uncarbonated wort.

TL;DR – Remember that yeast is the “living” part of beer, ales and lagers are classified as such by their yeast strains, and the scientific names are always italicized.

So you want to be a Beer Writer? – Malt 101

Hey, I see you there, backing away from that conversation about malt because one person started talking about amylase activity in mash.

Get back in there slugger! I got you covered with this overview of what malt is, how it’s made, and why it’s important.

This primer will cover the basics (yes, I left quite a bit out) for those who want to write (or speak) with a little more confidence. If you’re looking for a deep dive into delicious piles of malt, check out John Mallet’s book from Brewer’s Publications. I heard the guy who edited it is pretty cool.

Malt as a beer ingredient

While consumers may name hops as the most recognizable ingredient in beer (water is always so sadly overlooked), malt does a ton of selfless work in the brewhouse. Loose kernels of malted grain are cracked in a mill then added to the mashtun, where they steep at a specific temperature to encourage enzyme activity, ultimately creating the sweet primordial soup from which all beerish life will eventually emerge: wort.

A beer’s recipe will normally include a combination of base malts and specialty malts.

Base malts are generally pale with high diastatic power (also known as degrees Litner), meaning in layman’s terms that they have the potential to produce more sugar, more easily. They provide the food for the yeast (often called fermentables), and a beer made entirely of a single base malt would be a shade of yellow or gold with a singular complexity.

Specialty malts are added at various points during the mash (depending on the recipe), and contribute to the color, aroma, and flavor profile of the beer. Contrasting the base malts, they tend to contain very few fermentable sugars, and are used primarily for their other gustatory and olfactory qualities.

The length of the sugars extracted by the enzymes in mash dictate much of how the yeast will ferment the beer, too. It may not be as sexy as those sticky pods of lupulin, but malt is incredibly important to brewing (and enjoying) beer.

Malt as a verb

Although “malt” in the brewing industry often manifests as a noun (“what kind of malt did the brewer use in this beer?), the verb form – “to malt” – is more important to understanding the ingredient.

Cereal grains grow tall, and when they are mature, produce seeds. These seeds are like any other; out in the wild, they’d fall to the ground, get covered in dirt and moisture, and begin to grow when the next season came rolling in on Spring sun.

Simple enough.

But taken out of the natural cycle, cereal grains cannot make beer until they are malted, or more specifically, soaked, germinated, and dried. Maltsters (the people who make malt, shockingly enough) harness the seed’s biological imperative, and trick it into growing. They place the seeds into a bed of water and let them begin to grow roots and breathe. The goal is to allow the seed to change – or modify – sufficiently that it will break down its own internal sugars and release them into the hot waters of the mash to make wort.

When the seed is fully modified (or close to) they halt the growing and modification process by blowing hot air through the grain. After the tiny roots are removed (a process call deculming), the malt is kilned, both to prevent spoilage and create desired flavors through Maillard reactions. All of a beer’s color is derived from its malt; the darker the roast, the darker the beer, from the delicate daffodil of lager (pale bale malt) to the midnight dark of stout (roasted barley).

It’s imperative the grain be malted well before it reaches the brewery; without the malting process the seeds would be dry, rock hard, and lacking the necessary sugars to provide a feast for the yeast. Apparently some attempts at non-malt beer have been tried by the Japanese, but 99% of the time, when we’re talking beer as history and culture knows it, we’re talking malted grains.

Malt as a noun

“Malt” as a standalone makes for a poor noun. It’s far too abstract, as many different grains like rye, wheat, sorghum, oat, rice, and corn can be malted.

While yes, malted barley makes up the vast majority of all malt used in beer making, it’s important to quantify which type of malt you’re referring to, which is why you’ll often see references to “malt barley” in beer writing. Malted barley itself can be expanded out into a huge list of varieties and levels of roast, and many beer recipes use multiple types of malted barley to achieve certain flavors and colors (two-row, six-row, Munich, Carapils, Crystal, patent black, etc). Other beers mix types of malted grains – a rye IPA for example might use both malted barley and malted rye.

“Grain” is equally lacking as a noun. Industry jargon discusses the grain bill of a beer (or the list of malts that went into the mashtun) but the word itself refers to unmalted seeds. Grain exists in the fields; it’s an agricultural term. “Grist” – as in grist bill – reads similar; it implies ground grain (like that used to make bread flour), but makes no reference to whether or not it has been malted. Neither are fundamentally incorrect and both are used widely, but it’s always good to remember exactly what each means.

Malt as an adjective/adverb

In Chapter 2 of his book, Mallet says that he thinks Munich malt is the closet match to quintessential “malt flavor” and I tend to agree. It compares best to malt as it appears outside of beer: malted milkshakes and malted chocolate balls. But other varieties of barley malt taste very different; dark roasted specialty malts, like Special B for example, can have notes of raisins and dates, while some other pale base malts taste like Pillsbury dinner rolls or KFC biscuits. All that to say that while there is a basic malt flavor, varieties of malts can taste very, very different from each other.

“Malt” works perfectly as a traditional adjective: malted barley. Use it with impunity.

It doesn’t work at all as a blanket adverb: “malty.”

“Malty” is lazy. And boring. And uninspired.

It’s equivalent to boiling The Alchemist’s Heady Topper or Ballast Point’s Sculpin down to “hoppy.” A single adjective doesn’t do justice to the complexity and variety our tongue and noses are capable of experiencing. Saying a beer is “malty” is like saying that your steak tastes like meat or your wine tastes like grapes; of course it does, it’s quite literally made of that thing. Every single beer in the world (barring maybe that weird aforementioned Japanese stuff) will in some capacity taste malty.

Use bready or biscuity instead. Or toasted or roasted or burnt. Hundreds of other, more specific adjectives can describe what you’re tasting, so don’t  cop out and go with “malty.” Your future readers thank you.

I understand a lot of people use “malty” as a way to grade the level of noticeable malt flavor when compared to others beers and styles, but it’s still an unimaginative smear of language being used in the place of proper, descriptive prose. If something tastes more malty than something else, say exactly that, but then follow it up with concrete examples of what you’re actually tasting.

Malt is both simple and complex, both obviously present and hiding in the background. Take the time to get to know how malt works in your favorite beers, and you’ll discover a new appreciation for the naturalistic side of beer, and how amazing it is that maltsters have basically bridled and domesticated the Kreb’s cycle. It may not be glamorous, but it’s still beautiful in its own, agronomic way, and deserves to be treated with respect lest it, and your writing about it, be infested with weevils.

TL;DR – to use the term “malt” or “malted” is to imply that a grain underwent a specific process that has been used to make beer for centuries. It’s a verb first, a noun second, an adjective third, and an adverb never.

One million pounds of barley malt drying at the Budwesier malting plant in Idaho Falls, ID.

Beer Bloggers and Writers Conference 2015 – Moving Beyond the Beer Review

In a few weeks, amidst the serene beer landscape that is Asheville, North Carolina, I’ll be presenting on a panel at the Beer Bloggers and Writers Conference. The panel itself, “Moving Beyond the Beer Review” promises to be a pretty awesome foray into moving ones blogging and writing into the fertile lands that exist past the walls of the basics, and I’ll be speaking with some very esteemed company (a description of the panel can be found here).

I’ve done a lot of presentations in my 29.7 years, either at work, or through school, or as part of some culminating social experience. I’m one of those people who doesn’t fear speaking publicly, and sometimes even really enjoy it (especially the “have energetic conversations with enthusiastic people” part). Call me loquacious. Call me loudmouthed. I like to speak.

But this presentation manifests in my brain differently; perhaps because it’s the first presentation I’ve ever done about this little laborious love I call a blog, or about beer, or about writing about beer. It means a lot more to me than some generic book presentation or SharePoint training, and as a result, I really want to make sure I get it right. Thus this post.

Moving Beyond the Beer Review

Note: This is not a copy of what I’m going to present at the conference, I just wanted to get my ideas down/logically oriented and simultaneously make a reference document to share with attendees. If you’re going to be at BBC15, there might be some overlap, but I promise I’m not giving everything away. Think of this as supplementary ramblings.

When I started writing about beer, I wrote beer reviews. Creating accurate expository descriptions of beer means taking the time to learn brands and smells and flavors, giving a writer a good basis for creating good prose. Basic beer reviews are Beer Writing 101; a prerequisite needed to ground your mind and palate in the proper context, before exploring more elaborate topics.

I quickly moved past the beer review in my own writing, and have, for a few years now, sort of looked back at them with irrational disdain. My default line is that the traditional appearance, smell, and flavor driven review is boring. But simply dismissing them as not interesting doesn’t capture my true sentiment. It’s not that they’re inherently bad or have no use (the popularity of sites like Beer Advocate and Rate Beer proves otherwise), it’s that they don’t offer a reader anything except flat, encyclopedia-like information. I wanted to dig deeper and figure out why the beer review turned me off so much.

To start, there are some inescapable flaws with the traditional review:

• They’re too subjective to be worth much
• Thousands upon thousands of people have already reviewed most beers
• Myriad sites already exist with this content, so reproducing it on a blog doesn’t offer anything new
• There are so many other things in beer culture to write about besides what the beer tastes like

But these still didn’t get to the beating heart of why I disliked reviews so much. After much soul searching, I came to this ultimate, writerly conclusion: a generic beer review offers no story, and as a result, has a very hard time engaging a reader who seeks anything beyond rote fact.

A quick, important grammar lesson before moving on. And don’t get me started on your “not liking grammar.” A writer who doesn’t like grammar is like a chef who doesn’t like spices or a soccer player who doesn’t like shoes. Learn how to use your tools or find another trade.

Annnnnyyyyyway, there are two kinds of verbs: transitive and intransitive. Transitive verbs take a direct object, while intransitive verbs take a subject compliment.

Transitive: Oliver writes about beer.
Intransitive: Oliver is a writer.

While both sentences are similar, the transitive sentence shows me more information and progresses the sentence by using a strong verb, as opposed simply telling me a fact about the subject. Whenever you see “is” or “was” substitute in an equals sign and you’ll see what I mean.

Oliver is a writer (Oliver = a writer)
The beer was an IPA (Beer = an IPA)

All you’re doing with “to be” verbs is creating a comparison, not actually moving the writing forward, or creating an engaging narrative.

Let’s look at a full (but simple) paragraph to get an even better sense:

Transitive: Oliver writes about beer. He spins stories about fermentation. He also enjoys teaching people about grammar.
Intransitive: Oliver is a writer who writes about beer. His stories are about fermentation. Teaching people grammar is something he enjoys.

See the difference? Notice the lack of flow and staccato rhythm of the intransitive sentences? You’re also sinking deeper into the mire of passive language when using intransitives, and are forced to adorn your sentences with even more grammatical embroidery to capture the same information.

The operative word and idea is that transitive verbs show the reader something. There’s an old adage that pops up in writing workshops everyday: “Show, don’t tell.” It’s the idea that you want to guide your reader through a narrative and let them experience it as they will, not hold their hand and point out every little detail that is suppose to be important. Even if you’re only writing a review, readers want a arc, a mini-plot, a point, not just a data dump. This concept isn’t scary or new, either, it’s part of storytelling (and fiction!) fundamentals.

Knowing this grammatical sleight of hand, we discover that the beer review is not in fact boring, it simply does not show the reader anything.

Instead, it tells them. Forces information through their eyes and into their brains with no elegance or flow. It tells them what it tastes like, what it looks like, what it smells like. Why, as a reader, would I want that? Why not just go out and experience that myself?

When you ground your writing in intransitive comparisons (I see a startling overuse of “to be” verbs in nearly every review I read), you’re subconsciously telling the reader you don’t trust them to properly read your writing, or understand what you’re trying to say.

Not cool beer writers, not cool. Trust your readers, assume they’re smart and that your writing is clear. Have as much faith in your product as you do in the products you review.

BBC15 TL;DR – The innate problem isn’t the idea of beer reviews themselves, but with how a vast majority are executed. I see the same problem is event recaps, brewery and brewer profiles, and release statements, too. If you want more readers, more conversation, more engagement on your blog, you need to learn to use verbs to tell a story, even if that story is of you sitting at home, tasting a beer.

For some examples of transitive, story-based beer reviews, check these out:

http://literatureandlibation.com/2013/11/06/beer-review-sam-adams-thirteenth-hour/
http://literatureandlibation.com/2014/09/10/beer-review-southern-tier-warlock/
http://literatureandlibation.com/2014/06/27/beer-review-bells-two-hearted-ale/

Grammarian’s note: I don’t mean to imply that intransitive verbs are incorrect and should never be used. Obviously that’s not true, as I used dozens of them in this post (including this sentence). Just be aware of when you’re using them, and if they’re the proper verb for the context of your sentence. Sometimes they are, but with newer writers, often times they’re not. For more information about verbs, read this.

The Session #94: The Way I Role

(DING is back as our host for The Session #94, this time asking us to consider our individual roles in the beer community/industry)

As I downloaded the pictures we’d taken in Gettysburg after my wife’s birthday-turned-photoshoot, I had to briefly pass through hundreds of shots of bottles and cans of beer in front of our guests. I’d hooked my laptop up to the TV, and my previously imported beertography spilled out all over Lightroom, too fluid and legion to clean up or hide quickly. My wife’s friend noticed, and laughed. “Did you really need to take so many pictures of beer?” The rest of the room laughed with her.

I felt a flush of embarrassment. There are a lot of photos of beer on my computer. Nearly 200 GB, if I’m being honest. Lots and lots of photos that are nearly identical, short of a slight change in depth of field, or a minor adjustment in framing. The nested folders of images translate to many hours behind the viewfinder, and exist as proof of my obsession that few people ever see.

Did I really need to take so many pictures of beer? Yes, I did.

To me, every photo contains a story, or at least the potential for one. The old adage parrots “a thousand words” but to me there’s more than just the details in the arrangement of the pixels. I spend so much time and take so many pictures trying to capture that one fleeting second, the one perfect microcosm of me, in our culture, at that exact moment, all so I can tell a story.

Not so I can promote a brewery. Not so I can earn money. Not so I can show off.

Only to tell a story.

It’s the same reason my mind builds narratives when I’m scanning beer labels, or wandering around a brewhouse, or ordering another round for friends. Beside all those proto-photos rest skeletons of stories, bones and structure with no meat, frameworks waiting for an infusion of reality to reanimate them.

I’m a writer who lives in a beerish world, and as a result, I’m always trying to mine the veins of our culture for some literary truth. I feel obligated to tell the stories that make up my world, that make up our world, so writing about beer becomes a literal manifestation of “writing what I know.”

Contemporary beer writing has been plagued by a decided lack of storytelling. It’s not completely systemic, but I do see a lot of writing that, while functionally fine, reads like technical documentation or corporate copy. The latent sex-appeal of beer has been supplanted by a strange utilitarian slant, where brewing details, tasting notes, and arguments over semantics have wrestled importance away from engaging a reader and potentially teaching them something.

We’ve gone full-throttle on the science and the details, but forgotten that industry need not be mechanical and cold, and that a lot people have difficulty connecting with data and flat exposition. We’ve forgotten that humans are hardwired to follow narratives, connect to characters, to start at the beginning and stop at the end.

In short: we’ve built the rituals and canon of beer without developing any of the mythology. Joseph Campbell would be pissed.

I try to populate the empty pantheon. I try to weave all the loose threads into cohesive forms, move past the liquid in the glass to stories that people want to read. I’m not always successful, I know, but that’s my “role” if I had to pick one.

Writers have more competition for attention than ever in the history of writing, so I feel it important, if not downright necessary, to write something that’s free from errors, creatively composed, fundamentally worth reading. Either because it has a point that makes one challenge presupposition, or because it’s legitimately fun to read or intrinsically beautiful.

That’s it. No other secret plans or ulterior motives or special considerations. I’ve always enjoyed reading stories (I might even argue that I participate in them), so it only makes sense that I’d enjoy writing them, too. To me, human history is one big book, and American beer is a chapter that’s still being written. Let’s make sure it’s a good chapter, a chapter worthy of all this cultural passion, one story at a time.

Birthday-turned-photoshoot results. Worth way more than a 1000 words, I think.

Why Blog?

This post is part of a prompt from my fellow Mid-Atlantic beer bloggers. The idea is to get introspective, take some time as we hide under blankets from winter’s chill to think about how blogging (or writing about beer in general) has changed, or influenced, or mangled our relationship with the beer itself.

I’m going to argue that this blog hasn’t changed my relationship with beer.

It has changed my relationship with everything.

When talking writing, blogging, or any unpaid word mining and sentence smithing, the same question always seems to sneak out: why do it? Why spend so many hours, so much energy, keeping a digital journal of your thoughts and stories? It’s a legitimate query, and one that doesn’t always have a good answer. Blogging (well) involves more work than most people realize, and unless you win the internet lottery and ride the viral train to hits-town, there’s often very little return on investment (especially if you’re measuring said ROI in actual dollars).

So if not for fame or fortune, why? Writing can be its own reward, a cathartic outlet, a salvage yard for ideas not meant for commercial consumption. But there’s more, something fundamental, something formative in creating and curating your own online space.

Like a symbiotic organism attached to your parietal lobe, your blog alters your brain chemistry, slowly changing how you view the world. Experiences aren’t just one-offs anymore, they’re potential stories, or lessons, or photo-ops. The blog nudges you, encourages you, reminds you to dig deeper, to pull as much viscera from the everyday as you can without killing the poor thing. As it grows, you grow, teaching you just as much as you’ve taught it. The jumble of HTML and CSS behind a URL is more than just the sum of its pages, of its posts. It becomes an extension of you, a tangible and important aspect of your life like a digital pet who needs your love and attention.

Long car ride chats about sociology and philosophy lead to Eurekas and light bulbs, followed shortly thereafter by the powerful declarative, “that’s a blog post.” Simple conversations with new friends offer new perspectives. The blog overhears and records, for later use. After some time it takes partial control of your eyes, showing you details overlooked before, angles and blind spots obscured by privilege or naivety. Given more time it moves to your ears, filtering, noticing, listening for what matters in a multimedia cacophony of what doesn’t. Eventually, even your mouth will succumb, asking questions the blog wants answered, promoting, teaching, rambling at the behest of the ever-whirring gizmo inside your mind.

Running this blog rewired my brain. Rejected the old reality and injected a new one. It made me more attentive, more detail-focused, more interested in the whys and whos behind the whats, because the blog is picky, and will only eat the finest of meaty knowledge.

So of course, despite my earlier statement, this blog has changed my relationship with beer. But not only beer, and not because that’s what I write about most often. It changed the relationship with the drink because it changed me, forced me to see the poetry in the prosaic, the delicate dance happening between hop and water and malt. Beer is just a medium; it could have been anything. It just so happens I really like fermentation. The blog found the beer, not the other way around.

So why blog? Because it gives you a reason, a catalyst, to take a different look at the world. You do it for the constant creative companion to your inevitable individual evolution. You don’t run a personal blog for celebrity or cash (although if you’re lucky those things may come in time), you do it for you, to mature, to teach yourself, to grow.

Scroll yet further southward for the other posts on this prompt:

• Josh from Short on Beer: Beer blogging has ______ my relationship with beer.
• Douglas from Baltimore Bistros & Beer: Beer Blogging and My Relationship With Beer
• Bryan from This Is Why I’m Drunk: It’s My Relationship and I Can Cry if I Want To
• Jake from Hipster Brewfus: Verbose Validation of Verbage
• Liz from Naptown Pint – Which came first, the beer or the blogging?

Five Years, Five Beers

Today, in all its falling leafy glory, marks the fifth anniversary of this blog. It’s hard to believe that 1825 days have waxed and waned since I first plugged “Literature and Libation” into WordPress, thinking I was very clever for such thematically appropriate alliteration.

Nostalgia is equal parts funny and sad. I remember my first stabs at beer writing; terrible reviews of Bud Light Platinum and Newcastle Founders Ale written mainly at the urging of my sister. I’m not sure if she actually believed in my ability or just wanted something to break the boredom of her workday, but I have to indirectly thank her for setting me down this wet and wild hopped road.

My timing in starting the blog coincided (perhaps serendipitously) with a change in my life, a time when I started to realize I was no longer that “college kid,” that my view and opinions were changing, moving, realigning with my more adult understanding of the world. It also just so happened to line up – like the planets slipping silently into perfect linear arrangement – with the period I started drinking better beer.

I’ve tried many, many beers in these five years; probably more than I had in the five previous to these, combined. At the behest of my friendly neighborhood brewing wizards this blog forced me out of the quiet simplicity of my Shire, taking me on adventures I’d never expected, showing me a world full of hoppy wonder and malty marvel. But in all those beers I sampled and sipped, I always returned to a some staples, stalwarts, those faithful, consistent few. These beers are more than my comfort falls backs, more than the fermented pajamas I slip into after a long and arduous day, they were my training wheels, my guides, my glass-clad sherpas up the mountains of good beer.

So on this anniversary, I salute them. And their brewers. And all the staff that helped bring them to me, and me to this world I love so much.

1. Dogfish Head 60 Minutes IPA

First came Sam’s flagship, the first “craft” beer I can remember my parents ever having in stock. My first reactions to IPA flirted dangerously close to “bitter beer face” but as my taste buds shed their nascent skin, I grew to appreciate how much was going on in a bottle of 60, and how easily accessible (if a tad pricey) such a different beer had become. I always come back to 60 minute as a reference point, some grounding, a reminder of where my taste for hops came form, and where beer was five, six, or seven years ago. When I first started this blog, I had no idea why it was even called 60 minute, assuming it was named such because it would take someone an hour just to finish one bottle.

2. Flying Dog Doggie Style (now Pale Ale)

A part of my beer-drinking self always latched itself to no-frills pale ales, either out of irrational loyalty to what my father taught me to love, or out of safety, comfort, the beauty of repeatable simplicity. Whatever fueled it, it manifested in Flying Dogs award winning pale; there’s nothing particularly wild about it, but there it is, balanced, refreshing, happy to be the middle child between weird exotic yeasts and tired pale lagers. From this safe base of pale malt I felt confident to branch out into pretty much any style: I always had a big soft pint of pale to fall back into if things got a little too freaky and yeasty.

3. Heavy Seas Loose Cannon

The pirate in me gives me orders, his drunken swaggering the impetus for a lot of my rambling of the same. It’s no surprise I took to Heavy Seas; they’re local, they’re good, they’re unabashedly pirate themed. While I enjoy quite a few of their beers, Loose Cannon sidled up to me early, mug of grog in hand, sly whispers of, “you like 60 minute? Well you’ll love me.”

And I did. And do. And probably always will. It’s my quintessential Maryland beer, and that’s saying a lot (sorry Natty Boh).

4. Sam Adams Boston Lager

A cliche? Perhaps. A mistake? Never. All recent commercials aside, Sam Adams Boston Lager is a pretty fantastic gateway beer. It has everything you could want without being offensive about it. There’s also something to respect about the market positioning Sam Adams set the rest of the industry up for, and sometimes I buy their beer simply out of beer guy respect. Are there better options? Sometimes. But you’ll almost never have a friend turn down a Boston Lager, even if their normal drinking typically falls much much further in BMC territory.

5. Yuengling Lager

I just can’t quit the old girl from Pottsville. I’ve tried. Oh, how I’ve tried. In my early years of being a mindless craft crusaders, I swore off “junk” beer like Yuengling, feigning some kind of pretentious elitism that somehow, despite everything Yuengling had done for me, made me better than the beer. Well I’m not. I’m not better than any beer. The pedigree behind even the lowest rated and much maligned beers still outweighs mine a thousand fold. I’m especially not better than the good ole girl from Pottsville.

So to celebrate my perfuntory triumph of managing not to burn out too badly or quit in a huff of public, Twitter glory, I’m not going to reach into the back of the fridge for some rare beer. I’m not going to chuck harpoons looking for whales. I’m definitely not going to forget where I came from, how I got here, and which beers were integral to keeping me on track.

Here’s to the standbys, the go-tos, to old friends. But more importantly, here’s to all you readers and all your support. If I had the time and money to buy you all a beer, I most certainly would.

Here’s to beer. Here’s to writing. Here’s to five more years.

So you want to be a Beer Writer? – Part 3 – Avoiding Sentimentalism

April’s run of The Session (hosted by Heather of Beer Hobo) brought out some well-informed conceits about beer, writing, and writing about beer. The commentary cut a pretty large swath through the grain fields of our culture, and I was pleased to see a lot of energetic opinions on how to elevate and evolve past the current trends in beer journalism. If you’re interested in reading more about beer as a nonfiction topic from some of the best sources in the business, Heather’s round-up is here.

Despite a few wonderful essays and some really thoughtful, constructive feedback for us writers, there was little discussion about the quality of the writing. Alan McLeod flirted with it at the end of his entry, but no one really cut deep into the tender meaty importance of writing in a syntactically, grammatically, structurally, and thematically engaging manner. If we have a problem in the beer writing community, I’m willing to bet that the problem isn’t the beer, or the community.

I could go on about sloppy writers who clumsily wield grammar like a linguistic sledge hammer, smashing clauses into phrases with about as much grace as a sloshed rhinoceros, but that wouldn’t be productive. If you’re going to be a writer (and yes, if you run a blog you’re a writer, like it or not), you have to learn how to use your tools. No excuses, no exceptions.

In place of getting into the literal literary nuts and bolts, we’ll pull our topic from the shadowy side of the discourse, illuminate that insidious and sneaky monster that permeates lots of modern writing: Sentimentalism.

We all know the word sentimental, and know the malformed lump of negative connotation on its back. It’s often thrown in as an declarative insult, “Stop being so sentimental.” Sentimentalism relies on opinion and feeling, coming from the writer’s innate emotion, often eschewing logic, reason, and repeatable fact. It’s the easy way out from a communication and creativity perspective; you can have an experience, form an opinion, then write about it. No extra research or parallel thinking needed. Hell, I’m doing that exact thing right now.

But sentimentalism, generally, doesn’t make for good writing. It makes for ephemeral jolts of subjectivity, none of which provide much context, none of which manage to dive very deep beneath the surface to expand, entertain, or educate. It’s brain-dumping in its purest form, the literary embodiment of “I think what I have to say matters, so I’m going to say it, regardless of qualification or contradictory evidence.” There are some writers who can use this style to great effect (especially in humor, see: David Sedaris) but for the most part, sentimentalism is the nonfiction writing plague of our generation.

It’s sort of the inborn cry of the internet denizens dashed in ink, a sense of entitlement brought to life with awkward phrases and unsupported assertions. Modern nonfiction slides ever towards the municipal landfill partly because we have fewer qualified gatekeepers (read: newspapers and magazines, and editors at both), significantly more avenues of publication that slip past any critical review, but also because a lot of young, new writers think that any opinion they have is valid, and worth writing 400 words about, in odd, self-fulfilling homage.

Honor thy elders

If we look at some nonfiction masters, we’ll find very little of how they feel about their topics. The best writing (that survives the test of time-based irrelevance) stands proudly objective; letting the facts and details portray the emotion and power of the scene, all without clunky attempts to two-hand shove insight into the reader’s path.  In Susan Orlean’s 1992 Esquire piece, “The American Male at Age Ten,” she never directly tells us what she thinks about Colin Duffy, her opinions on how he’s being raised, or her take on the social commentary oozing out of his budding pubescence. Instead, she lets Colin and his actions speak on the page by showing us who he is and how he lives. Not even a hint of sentiment, and yet, the piece is powerful and speaks volumes about our society’s treatment of young boys.

Some might argue that you can get away with not having feelings and opinions in a long-form journalistic piece, but that it wouldn’t work in other, more complicated context. To them I offer Joan Didion’s book “The Year of Magical Thinking,” a story so teeming with the potential to get sentimental that emotion-termites have eaten away most of the pages of my paperback copy. And yet, despite the surging, unfair realities of death in her life, Didion presents grief in a detached, objective manner, very rarely indulging in her own turmoil, and giving the reader fascinating (if heartbreaking) insight into the grieving process. The book succeeds in teaching the reader about life, death, grief, and love, because her intentional lack of direct editorial makes her messages approachable, universal, not just relevant to the prosaic bits and pieces of how it went down for her.

Still not convinced? Then just pick up any John McPhee, any David Quammen, any Michael Pollan, any Laura Hillenbrand. Go on a mystical vision quest to find direct, clear opinion from the writer. You won’t find much, if any, because the best writers don’t use it. They’re aware and capable enough to know that a story needs to stand alone without crutches made of empty sentiment.

So how do we avoid it?

Let me clarify: I’m not suggesting that beer writing should be robotic nonsense, completely void of feeling or emotion. That’s almost as bad as touchy-feely Buzzfeed fluff. There are times when you can’t avoid smearing your greasy soul all over the page, and times when that may be the perfect thing to do. Using it effectively goes back to the Composition 101 theory of “showing vs. telling.” Ninety nine times out of one hundred, a sentimental piece of writing is telling the reader how to feel about something, instead of showing them and letting them discover the meaning on their own. I may very well be guilty of doing that in this post, reinforcing my point.

When you draw from a sentimental core to write a beer review (or anything, actually), you’re attaching to it all of your own likes and dislikes, history and experiences, all while steeping it in environmental and mental circumstances that probably couldn’t be recreated by you, never mind a complete stranger. This is why I dislike ~90% of traditional beer reviews. Not because the format itself is flawed, or because the collection of flavor and aroma data for a beer is a bad thing, but because most of these reviews are unabashedly telling the reader what to think. The implication is that the writer’s opinion is as good as fact, and that without establishing any specific authority, you’re just supposed to go along with what they say just because they were able to say it. Very Cartesian, really.

This may sound odd, but your job as a beer writer is not to tell me about beer. At least not directly. Telling a person reading a beer blog about a beer in a review is like describing the nuances of a piece of plywood to a master carpenter; you’re going to bore the carpenter, and he doesn’t really care about that aspect of the wood, anyway. Your job is to connect a reader to the beer in a way they don’t expect, show them what it meant to you (or didn’t, if you hated it) and let them draw a conclusion. Do your best to actively avoid inserting your own take and viewpoint, and focus more on capturing the context that exists outside of the glass.

Warning: pulling this off may require the use of snooty literary things like metaphors and imagery. Use them anyway. Your writing, and your readers, will be happier.

“Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.” – Jean Cocteau

 

So you want to be a Beer Writer? – Part 2 – What are you reading?

If you’ve traipsed down the shadowy alley of writing advice, you’ve almost certainly come across the, “to be a better writer, you have to write!” obviousisms,  which are usually followed by the trumpeting accompaniment of, “but you have to read, too!” I’m not here to deny either of those pieces of advice. To be a better writer, you definitely do need to write, and possibly more than you’re writing now. To be a better writer you do need to read good writing, preferably more on the side of good books and essays and stories, and less on the side of Buzzfeed and TMZ and DailyMail.

What you read is just as (if not more) important as what you write. It gives you examples of excellent storytelling and wordplay. It offers perspective from another, educated angle. It shows you what it takes to write something marketable, that people will actually want to read.

One of the best aspects of being a beer writer is that you’re not really a beer writer. I mean you’re not only a beer writer. Our bubbly beau topically involves culture, chemistry, biology, sociology, psychology, economics, and all manner of other abstract intangibles like love and passion and modern facial hair styles. Beer is pretty close to an ideal nonfiction subject; the simple topics can be broken down into ever more complex and curious ideas almost infinitely, like a Russian Doll whose last, tiny form is located precisely wherever your imagination happened to run out of energy.

There’s a draw back to having so malleable a topic: to be successful you’ll need to know about more than just beer. Depending on what you want to write, maybe a lot more. If you so choose to don the hallowed robes of beer writing, you’re going to have become a science writer, too. And a memoirist. And a social pundit. And a journalist. And a critic. And an essayist. And maybe a bunch of other things I’m forgetting.

You’ve got to be a writer first and a beer lover second. The best way to do that is to round-out your bookshelf (or Kindle, if that’s what you crazy kids are into).

When I started my masters program, sitting in class with a bunch of other bright-eyed, crazy-minded writers all talking about their day-jobs and future writing prospects, it struck me that I was woefully under-read. My peers were throwing out author names and essay titles that I couldn’t even pretend like I’d heard of. I knew from the very first session of my very first class that I needed to start reading more. The only problem was, given the massive spread of options on Amazon and the daunting sprawl of stacks at the local library, I had no idea where to start.

If you’re like I was then, I’m here to help. I’ve created a list that includes my favorite books about beer, but also lots not about beer to serve as examples of great nonfiction. This list is by no means exhaustive, it’s just the writing I’ve connected to the deepest, and learned the most from.

(I also encourage you to throw out your favorites in the comments if you don’t see them here)

Science/Brewing Beer Books

Principles of Brewing Science – George Fix
For the Love of Hops – Stan Heironymous
Yeast – The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation – Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff
Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers – John Palmer
How to Brew – John Palmer

Beer Culture, Styles, and Tasting

The Brewmaster’s Table – Garrett Oliver
The Oxford Companion to Beer – Garrett Oliver
Beer Tasting Tool Kit – Jeff Alworth
The World Atlas of Beer – Tim Webb
Beer, Food, and Flavor: A Guide to Tasting, Pairing, and the Culture of Craft Beer – Schuyler Schultz
The Audacity of Hops – Tom Acitelli

Science/Food Nonfiction

Ominvore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan
Botany of Desire – Michael Pollan
Oranges – John McPhee
Silent Spring – Rachel Carson
Stiff – Mary Roach
The Soul of a New Machine – Tracey Kidder

Other Nonfiction

Up in the Old Hotel – Joseph Mitchell
Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
The Hero With a Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell
The Golden Bough – James Frazer
Guns, Germs, and Steel – Jared Diamond
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
Devil in the White City – Erik Larson
The Perfect Storm – Sebastian Junger

Memoir

The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
This Boy’s Life – Tobias Wolff
Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight – Alexandra Fuller
Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris
The Pharmacist’s Mate – Amy Fusselman

Essays/Journalism

Strawberries Under Ice – David Quammen
The Search for Marvin Gardens – John McPhee
Frank Sinatra has a Cold – Gay Talese
Dark Horse – Lisa Couturier

I didn’t mention magazines because I’m still dipping my toes into that pool and can’t speak with much authority. You can’t really go wrong with The Atlantic, Smithsonian, NatGeo, or the New Yorker though.

So you want to be a Beer Writer? – Part 1 – Pallet vs. Palette vs. Palate

You’ve finally arrived at the intersection of inebriation, grammar, and Microsoft Word. You want to pour your love of beer out of the glass and smear it all over the page. You don’t want to be stuck a mere drinker; you want to transcend, elevate, lift yourself up in a rush of carbonated glory. Good for you! Admitting you have a problem is the first step to becoming a beer writer.

But the first step, in this case, is nowhere near the last step. Being a beer writer isn’t all strolling down easy street, wearing your casual Ugg boots, whistling “Peaceful Easy Feeling.” Beer isn’t a matter of life and death; it’s much more serious than that. You’re going to have to commit to not only drinking lots of beers, but also drinking lots of beers. You may have to take time to appreciate flavors and smell decadent aromas, possibly with your nose. You may even, at times, when things get really intense, have to go out with your friends to drink beers.

It’s a cruel, unforgiving pursuit.

But if you’re committed, I’m here to help. The information below is part one of a primer to transform your regular old prose into luscious lager literature. I’m happy to answer any questions in the comments, too.

Bubbling Verbs

Any good writer knows her verbs are the real pack mules of the syntax, lugging all that context on their backs without so much as an angry bray. The beer world affords a writer a bevy of excellent verb choices, namely those associated with liquids, drinking, staggering, and hanging (over). If you’re trying to up the ABV of your blog posts and articles, strong beer verbs can make all the difference. See “she opened the beer” verses “she wrenched the cap free.”

Here are a few of my favorites (in infinitive form):

Brewing-related: to ferment, to flocculate, to mash, to stir, to boil, to roll, to pitch, to rinse, to sanitize, to cool, to rise, to sink, to measure, to gauge, to float, to attenuate, to prime, to bottle, to carbonate, to cellar

Beer-sound related: to hiss, to pop, to sizzle, to fizz, to glug, to chug, to gulp, to cheer, to clink, to clunk, to plink, to crack, to toast, to sing, to yell

Beer-action related: to pour, to glass, to barstool, to order, to bitter-beer-face, to pry, to wrench, to twist, to nose, to sip, to savor, to tongue, to raise, to grasp, to slam, to session

Beer-effect related: to smile, to laugh, to hug, to proclaim, to embelish, to haze, to blur, to lurch, to occilate, to waiver, to stagger, to wretch, to drunk-dial, to wrestle, to put-your-leg-over-the-edge-of-the-bed-to-stop-the-spins, to vomit, to pass out, to pound, to thirst, to hunger, to regret, to swear

There are of course hundreds more. Don’t be afraid to verb a noun if it seems fitting. Shakespeare did it, and he seems to have done pretty well for himself.

Off-Flavors

At times, when home brewing your own word-beer, slight miscalculations in syntax temperature or literary recipe can lead to unwanted off-flavors. These are easily avoided by carefully paying attention during mash-draft. Some common off-flavors to watch out for:

Pallet vs. Palette vs. Palate

Unless you’re talking about moving a bunch of cases in a warehouse or are literally planning to paint with your beer, the correct spelling of the tasty portion of our mouth is “palate.”

Drink, Drunk, Drank

To drink is probably the most important verb in a beer writer’s keg-o-verbs, but it vexes many people because its past participle, “drunk,” can be a verb, a noun, or an adjective, depending on its role in the sentence. To add to the confusion, as a verb “drunk” requires an auxillary verb (to have, to be) to be used correctly. You wouldn’t say “I drunk the beer” unless you were already ten deep. An easy rule to avoid mistakes in obscure sentence constructions: check for a “be” or “have” before the word. If there is one, use “drunk” (The beers will be drunk tonight). If there isn’t, use “drank” (I drank the beer).

Drunk is very versatile:

As a noun – Oliver is a drunk.
As an adjective – Oliver is drunk.
As a verb – Oliver has drunk all the beer.

As an added grammatical bonus, here’s a full list of tenses for “to drink”:

Simple present – I drink (beer.)
Simple past – I drank (three beers.)
Simple future – I will drink (that beer. That one, right there.)
Present perfect – I have drunk (all the beer in the fridge. My bad.)
Past perfect – I had drunk (all those beers before they even got here.)
Future perfect – I will have drunk (that whole case before I leave.)
Present progressive – I am drinking (this beer.)
Past progressive – I was drinking (that beer before I started drinking this one.)
Future progressive – I will be drinking (during #beerchat.)

There, now you are never allowed to mess up “to drink” ever again.