The Session #111: Are you there Beer? It’s me, Oliver

At 3:00 PM on a Thursday, I found myself almost alone in the local hombrew shop.

Maryland Homebrew is a popular store. I’m used to sharing the mills with several other people, chatting about recipes while waiting my turn to crack. The yeast fridge is often crowded by homebrewing newcomers searching for a specific strain, while veterans reach past them for tried and true favorites. On any given Saturday, the warehouse space in the back hosts a smattering of curious DIY brewers, all of them sitting, laughing, sipping, while they watch a pot boil.

But this time, short of the staff quietly going about their work, it was just me. Just me and all that potential beer.

I took some time. And I mean took it. Gathered it up in my hands and consumed it. Spent each minute purposefully, deliberately, methodically.

It had been too long since I’d taken some time to be with my hobby. The stresses and obligations of life had turned it into perfunction, another box to check so my brain wouldn’t keep me awake all night with constant reminders of unchecked boxes. I had, in a way, distorted my fun into a form of work, disfigured my avocation with nasty scars of predictable routine.

I let the Maris Otter tumble through my fingers into the whirring maws of the mill. The exposed starch piled up in pillowy white hills. As I waited, I popped a few kernels into my mouth.

The next day, I brewed. Ten gallons, split into two batches of five. The batches are wedding bound; a simple Amber and Brown requested by the bride and groom, respectively. I normally brew alone, but my mom, staying with me before her trip to England, played an eager Igor. She’d had my beer before, but never actually participated in the brewing.

She asked questions I’ve long filed away as “known;” reminding me clearly of how much beer- and brewing-related information I’ve squirreled away in this caffeine addled brain. But her naivety was refreshing, if not down right rejuvenating. There stood a 59 year old woman who has seen and traveled and tasted the world, asking me, in earnest with sparkling curiosity, about the very basics of brewing beer.

And with that, on my front porch, drinking a Yuengling, stirring in an eye-balled half ounce of centennial hops, my heart broke. I saw in my mom myself, the me of 10 years ago, when all this brewing stuff was shiny and new. A version of me all but gone, replaced by some jaded asshole who thinks too highly of himself.

I had forgotten why. Why any of this mattered to me. What a hand-me-down kettle, some malt extract, and a dirty party tap on an old Coca-Cola corny meant to me when I first got it into my brain that I was qualified or skilled enough to make something as delicate as beer.

Forgotten all those hilarious stories of growing up with a dad who made his own beer-of-questionable-quality. Lost, in the wheel-spinning bullshit of Tweets and petty internet squabbles, the fact that I fundamentally love creating beer.

I’d let the demons of politics and pride in, stood by idly as they painted the walls, rearranged the furniture, and created a space I was no longer comfortable in.

And then I had the audacity to blame anything but myself.

It’s a weird thing to rediscover a wayward portion of yourself. Like firing up an old video game and finding a save file that you made, years ago, but having only vague recollections of what you did in the game to get to that point.

I just fired up that old save. I’m a little lost as to where I am exactly, but I do remember how to play this game.

Let’s just hope I can actually beat it, this time.

Announcement – The Session #111: Surviving a Beer Midlife Crisis

The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry. Sean Inman, of Beer Search Party, hosted the 110th session which involved lots of beer and lots of Twitter. You should check it out!

It’s been over two years since I hosted the Session, and I’ve been admittedly spotty in my participation when other people host. But I’m back!

This time with something a little less…odd…than last time.

Full disclosure: I don’t work in the beer industry. OK, yes, sometimes I get paid to write about beer, but that money does not my livelihood make. Despite pouring myself into brewing and beer culture for the last 6 years, I remain little more than an overly involved consumer.

I think that’s true about a lot of bloggers and beer writers. Some may work directly for breweries or distributors or behind the till in a beer store, but a lot of us toil in vocational worlds apart, spending our free time and free dollars on what can only (by definition) be called a “hobby.”

Recently, I’ve found my interest in said hobby waning. The brilliant luster of new beers and new breweries looks now, a few pounds heavier and a bunch of dollars lighter, more like dull aluminum oxide.

The thing I have embraced so fully and spent so much time getting to know and love, suddenly seems generally, unequivocally: meh. It’s like I’ve been living a lie, and everything I’ve done is for not. I’m having a beer mid-life crisis, yo.

Maybe it’s the politics of purchasing or selling. Maybe the subculture has peaked. Maybe this is the natural progression of a hobby that has no real tie to the industry behind it.

Maybe I’m way off the mark, and this whole thing is just a figment of my imagination.

But I’m willing to bet it’s not. All that talk of beer bubbles might prove true, but instead of a dramatic *pop* we’ll might see a slow deflation followed by a farting noise as some of the air leaks out and the hobbyist move on the spend their time and dollars elsewhere. It’s impossible to see the future, but if my fall from rabid beer fanboy to dude-who-drinks-beer-and-sort-of-wants-to-be-left-alone is indicative of a trend, I’ve got some signs to make a doomsaying to do.

What say you?

Do you find it hard to muster the same zeal for beer as you did a few years ago? Are you suffering through a beer-life crisis like I am? If so, how do you deal with it?

If not, put me in my place!

Post your responses in the comments of this post on Friday, May 6th, or tweet them to @OliverJGray. I’ll do a round up on the 16th so if you’re a little less than punctual, no worries.

I’m really looking forward to hearing everyone’s perspective. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in the comments, on Twitter, or at literatureandlibation at-sign google mail dot com.

 

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.

The Session #104 – Blog to Write

(For the 104th Session, Alan McLeod asks us to justify why we should keep writing about beer.)

I’ve missed The Session. Both figuratively and literally.

Directly after discovering Jay and Stan’s blogging braintrust, I didn’t miss a single iteration of the Session. I’d been diligent in following the topics, planning something ahead of time, and being ready for each month like an over-prepared college freshman. I even hosted once, much to the dismay of other bloggers, I’m sure. I miss writing Session entries because they’re fun and thought provoking and, well, easy, in the grand scheme of writing.

But I’ve also missed the deadline to post eight times in a row now (the last Session I did was #95). I know such a long hiatus might make it seem like I don’t have faith in the cause or support the idea, but realistically, it’s more about the timing of significant life events over the past year, and their direct overlap with the first Friday of each month. There are several never-to-be-finished drafts in this here WordPress database, half-hollow husks meant to be Session posts that have been left dangling from the dressform, a mess of patchwork fabric and loose threads.

I don’t want to see the Session die. I understand that I’m part of the problem by not actively participating, but I still think the idea to bring different perspectives together on a single topic has a lot of worth in a community that’s full of young writers still trying to find their voices. It’s also a great prompt for newer bloggers to jump in on without feeling sheepish: a place where everyone is welcome to say whatever they want about beer with (for the most part) little chance of repercussion.

That exists nowhere else that I know of. Other attempts to bring the community together like the Thursday night #beerchat on Twitter don’t really count, for me, as Twitter is too ephemeral and curt to really hash out any meaningful ideas.

I’ve written about why I blog before. That hasn’t changed. I keep writing here because it’s my space. No editors, no deadlines, no rules or stipulations. I’m a writer who writes way more than makes sense to consistently pitch to other publications, and in a style that most publications don’t want, anyway. Here, I’m free to do whatever, sculpt any sentences I can see in the formless clay, play with grammar and be obtuse, because no one is paying me, and the expectations are basically non-existent. For a prolific writer, a blog is creative freedom manifest. A linguistic jungle-gym. An all-you-can-eat buffet of syntactic gluttony.

A blog – if taken seriously and properly maintained – is an incredible catalyst to education. When I started in 2009, I knew comparatively…let’s see…nothing about beer. I thought I knew about brewing and styles and history, but as I began reading and studying more to write posts, I realized how startlingly little I knew. It’s given me an avenue to learn a tremendous amount about the ingredients, the processes, the people, the industry. You’re free to explore and research any topic you want, fumble through your own opinions about complex topics, engage in (and hopefully kick off) conversations that help us grow as drinkers, consumers, citizens, people. If your blogging means more to you than just banging out 150 word nonsense posts during lunch or reposting old articles/generic news pieces written by other people, you’re going to learn, whether you intend to or not.

That’s a good thing, and a reason to blog, if anyone ever needed one.

But outside of personal, artistic justification, niche blogs (and other writing) about niche topics remain important even if the format waffles, because they make up the voice of the consumer-side of the community. In every sub-culture some will rise to the top to speak and inform and possibly evangelize for the people within. Bloggers are those speakers. People who try to evolve into something beyond being that guy at the bar who erroneously explains the difference between ale and lager to his cavalcade of half-toasted co-workers. They take a chance to thrust a shovel below the surface only scratched by others, and put in the work to bring the fertile material below up to the surface for others to see.

That’s the goal. I think. At least. It’s not always perfect, and lots of blogs and bloggers – even those of stout convictions and pounding passions – never do manage more than rote regurgitation. It’s easy to fall into a trap of writing what is easy, repeating what you hear daily, and going with the flow so entirely that you’re lost in the current.

But hey, even the worst are trying. Attempting something bigger and with more reach than rambling to their close friends or boring strangers at parties. They’re adding to a narrative that will one day be looked back upon as historical; not perhaps world-changing historical, but certainly historical as related to the legacy of alcohol in post-industrial Homo sapein culture. And as much as you might want to scoff at the idea of “beer as a piece of history,” we’re already pulling from a mutli-millennium backlog of brewing and beer lore that was deemed important enough to be chronicled as part of human history by our ancestors. Looked at in that light, we’re just scholars recording history as it happens, using the internet as our immortal cuneiform.

And that’s just it, I think. Beer bloggers just so happen to write about beer, but it’s the actual writing that should take precedence. You can tell when a blogger isn’t really a writer, trust me on that one. Passion about a topic does not automatically equate to good or interesting writing, and readers can tell when you’re writing because you think you should not because you want to.

We run these blogs to have our voices heard, opinions aired. I’d submit that most people who write about beer (myself included) only do so because we’ve seen some fundamental truth about human nature either in the science of the kettle, or the behavior behind the bartop. I think all writers write to discover some meaning; beer bloggers (and writers) just use a medium that’s a tad more esoteric than usual.

If the current incarnation of the Session has crossed the finish line of its final marathon, that’s sort of sad, but so be it. I’d implore those who wants to write to keep writing even without  it. In addition to being the main curriculum of your own not-for-profit mini-university, writing is therapeutic and cathartic, and a hell of a better way to spend your time than many other things that pass as “entertainment” these days.

But write with responsibility. Do your best to carefully sift out the nuggets of golden narrative that come washing down the sluice, and do your best to avoid showing off the rocks you found that you think are gold. If you’re going to be a voice of your sub-culture, be a good one. Add to the narrative with humor or wit or education; don’t let misinformation, rumor-mongering, and petty drama take over. We have enough of that elsewhere in the world.

Blog to write. Write to learn. Learn to write. Write to write. About beer or otherwise.

 

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.

Growing a Career

Seven years ago, I held a bunch of seeds in my hand. A herbaceous menagerie piled lazily in my palm.

Some I’d had since birth, stored away by my parents in little bags and boxes until the soil was fertile enough to plant them. Others I deliberately picked out myself after years of scrutinizing plants and perennials, flowers and fruits. Others yet appeared as if by natural magic, wild and weird and full of unknown potential. My future rested there, dormant and dry, needing naught but my time and energy.

On one side of the garden, I prepared the soil. Spent years learning the inborn dos and donts, uncovering how best to make the seed yield a plant that would yield a crop. I thought I knew which seeds went where, which I wanted and suited me best, which would grow the fastest, the strongest, the tallest. Armed with oddly specific education, I dropped these seeds into the tilled dirt with utmost care, careful to spread them out evenly, set them deeply, water them diligently.

On the other side, I haphazardly scattered those random mystery pods that had mixed in with the rest, unsure how to make them grow, of if I even wanted them to grow at all.

The sun shone and rains fell. The earth turned in the sky and on the ground, the work of worms and wormholes. The seeds took root, extending their little legs into the ground around them, building a base before shooting tender probes out from the safety of below, to peek out at the above. As expected, the seeds I had planted with dedication grew first, in clean, traditional rows that at first, looked healthy and bright.

But then something wholly unexpected happened. The random seeds, despite a lack of research or education or attention, began to sprout too. They popped up here and there, some spindly some leafy some altogether bizarre, but all of them healthy and in some ways, miraculous.

For a few years, I focused on tending the chosen set of seeds; spent most of my sunlight hours weeding, feeding. They grew steadily, and after a short amount of time, required significantly less care than I had originally expected. This left time open in the fading twilight of most days. I turned my attention to my random sproutlings.

By now, they were bushy and broad, almost antithetical to my organized rows on the other side of the garden. I took some time to learn what they were now that their true identities had burst forth from the seeds, and found that what I’d accidentally planted was actually really cool. The plants proved much more exotic and engaging, and unlike my slow but steady growth on the other side, some grew rapidly with next to no direct input from the gardener.

I began to split myself in two; tending my faithful crop as always, but finding myself spending more and more time cultivating the growth of the randoms on the other side. Some days I’d neglect my planned garden entirely, lost in a verdant bower of intertwined barley and hops. All the plants thrived, but my original plan, to grow and cash in on a traditional crop, suddenly seemed lacking, when the possibility of a much more exciting but much less consistent path opened up to me like a tulip on a sunny spring day.

It’s almost time to harvest, at least for the first time. Despite the balancing act, both sets of plants have budded and nearly come to flower; their nascent peak, my mental pique.

I’m at a horticultural precipice. I have a decision to make. I know that once they flower, it will be impossible to keep both alive. If I choose one side of the garden to devote my attention to, the other will wither and die. I’ll lose the invested time and resources, the connections and friendships I’ve made with other gardeners and farmers, the proprietary industry knowledge that might carry me into the future. But if I don’t make a choice, neither crop will flourish, and I’ll be left a failed gardener, with little to show for my half-decade-plus of work.

It’s not an easy decision to make. Safety or adventure? Boredom or risk? My thirty years around the sun haven’t helped clear up much, and I stand, staring at my plants, wondering what the hell to do.

Seven years ago, I held a bunch of seeds in my hand. A future, maybe, but not the one I planned.

How can one make a decision now that might affect his always? What does one do when waiting for a flower to bloom?

Craft and Draft: The Most Important Tool of the Writing Trade

Writing advice tends to focus on ways to improve wordplay through seductive syntax, elegant editing, and creative applications of your personal brand of writerly insanity. The sentence sages of the internet kingdom give (and have given) solid suggestions for how to augment ideas and the words, and should be thanked and showered with gifts for their contribution to improving the stories of the writing collective. But even among such varied and abundant advice, I rarely see anyone transcend the theoretical, to advise to writers beyond the writing, to perhaps talk about some of the more practical aspects of being a prolific letter bender.

There’s one niche topic that seems all but wholly ignored, probably because it falls very low on the priority list of most writers who are investing free time to refine their craft. One niche topic that plays a role in everything you write, eventually. One niche topic that I, as a technical writer, hold very near to my heart:

Keyboards.

I know, I know, all that build up for keyboards? But belay your disappointment for a moment and think about the importance of that chained click-and-clack: even if you draft stories on paper, one day, sooner than later, you’ll have to transcribe that onto your computer to get it published. Your keyboard is your gateway to the written world, your concept manifester, your irreplaceable partner in the literary dance of life. The sooner you embrace your relationship with your keyboard, the sooner you’ll be a happier (and potentially healthier!) writer.

I upgraded my keyboard after fighting daily with a dying Logitech for a few months, and suddenly realized how much I’d been involuntarily handicapping myself by using a keyboard that didn’t work well, and didn’t fit my typing style. Since I starting smithing on my new board, not only can I write more quickly and accurately, but actually find I enjoy typing, to the point that I want to sit down and write simply for the satisfaction of feeling my fingers on the new keys. Like a new pair of running shoes, a new keyboard offers more comfort, fits your body better, and rejuvenates your mind for the tedious task at hand.

But before you just jump on Amazon and buy the prettiest little QWERTY out there, remember that not all keyboards are created equal, and just like shoes, you have to find the right fit. Fortunately, I’m about to condense 6 months of keyboard research into a single blog post, which should hopefully take some of the guess work out of choosing the right board.

To start, there are two types of keyboards: mechanical and membrane. Mechanical keyboards echo the earliest generation of computers; large, heavy, noisy slabs with that either very satisfying or very annoying plastic clatter. Membrane keyboards, the more modern of the two, are much more common, and nearly every laptop has this style hidden underneath its alphabetical layout. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but the decisions really comes down to preference and comfort.

Mechanical Motoring

Cherry MX Brown Switch

Partly due to their popularity with gamers, mechanical keyboards have seen a contemporary resurgence. They tend to be very easy to type quickly on, and include fancy, technical features like full N-Key rollover (a jargony way of saying that it will recognize all key presses even if multiple keys are hit at once; an advantage if you’re a very fast typist). These boards have an individual switch under each key that translates your keystroke to the computer as soon as the key is pressed. Most modern mechanical keyboards use “Cherry MX” switches, which come in a variety of colors.

These “colors” translate to different tactile feelings when you type; some are linear and need to be pressed all the way down, while others, like the “blue” switch includes a “bump” when you press the key, so you know when the keyboard has registered the letter. They also vary in terms of the force needed to push the key all the way down; a keyboard with “black” switches needs a surprising amount of downward pressure for each stroke, which may turn off writers with a lighter touch, who don’t (like me) attack their keyboards with much vigor.

The good news: there are many types of switches, offering varying levels of speed and comfort depending on your preferences. I won’t bore you too much with tje technical details of each switch, but if you’re curious, more information can be found here: Overview of Cherry MX Switches. If you’re curious about how the keys actually feel when pressed, visit a computer supply store that displays keyboards (read: not Best Buy). You can also buy a tester kit online.

Now for the practical stuff: as a writer, I found the linear black and clear switches too heavy/stiff for daily typing, and the blue too noisy. I found the red switches too flighty (leading to more mistakes the faster I wrote) and was thus torn between green and brown. I preferred the brown overall, for the tactile response and significantly reduced noise. I also find I have less tension in my hands and arms when typing on this keyboard. YMMV.

My new keyboard is mechanical, and I’m coming from a membrane style. I find that my writing is smoother, with fewer mistakes, and that I really enjoy typing on this thing. Several companies sell mechanical keyboards: mine is from WASD, but Das Keyboard, Razer, Logitech, and Corsair (plus a few others) also make variations.

Pros:
Fast, accurate typing
Heavy, so it doesn’t slide around on your desk
Satisfying key strokes that encourage more writing
Easy(ish) to clean

Cons:
Very noisy; not very good for writing in a quiet environment
Relatively expensive compared to membrane keyboards
Time investment needed to learn which switches you like best

Membrane Malleability 

My old (and filthy) membrane keyboard. The membrane is beneath those dome keys.

A large portion of modern keyboards sit on top of a gummy rubberish membrane, which in turn sits on top of a circuit board. When a key is pressed, the membrane contacts the circuit board, sending a signal to the computer that translates it into a letter. Each key is not its own moving part, but instead a pressure pad that is part of the entire membrane. Where the mechanical keyboard provides immediate tactile response, a membrane keyboard provides very little (sometimes none at all). There are two sub-types of membrane keyboards: “flat” like the one on your microwave, and “full-travel” like the one on your laptop.

On that note: membrane keyboards are featured on almost all laptops (as the space and weight of individual switches would be cumbersome for the form factor). They tend to be very gentle on your fingers and hands, very quiet, and preferable for light typists. They’re pretty resilient, too, as the membrane acts like a shock absorber that can withstand a lot of daily use. Many people prefer membrane keyboards because they take next to no effort to type on, and over years of using them by default, they’ve adjusted to the relative lack of physical response.

Nearly every company that makes keyboards makes membrane versions, but some feature media keys (to control music and movies), and other gizmos, gadgets, and assorted colorful knobs. There isn’t much difference between the actual keyboards based on manufacturer (like there is with the mechanical switches), so you’ve got more freedom in terms of design and additional features.

Now that I’ve made the jump, I wouldn’t go back to a membrane keyboard unless I had to (like when using my laptop). That’s solely personal preference; I’m a pretty aggressive writer, and hit the keys hard and fast when I’m in the proverbial zone. I’ve obviously written many, many things on membrane keyboards and found them comfortable for a very long time, so don’t take me as a followable example. You do you.

Pros:
Quiet
Easy on fingers and hands
Relatively cheap

Cons:
Little tactile response can lead to mistakes in typing
Gets dirty very easily, and can be difficult to clean
Key replacement proves difficult without proper tools
Lightweight means it can slide around your desk

Advanced Keyboarding

Tweet me if you’ve got questions! @OliverJGray

Keyboards also come in variations of form factor. If you experience pain while writing, or never feel comfortable on a flat keyboard, several companies sell ergonomic keyboards that split the keys down the center, supposedly to improve hand placement and typing accuracy while reducing wrist stress. The traditional keyboard has 104 keys (including a number pad), but if space is limited, you can also buy an 88-key version that sacrifices the number bad for a shorter body.

For the adventurous hipster, there are also other key layouts, including DVORAK and COLEMAK, all of which purport to be superior to the traditional QWERTY layout in terms of speed and accuracy (if modern typing lore is to be believed, QWERTY was actually designed to slow a writer down, as to not jam up the then completely mechanical type writers). I’ve only ever played around with DVORAK and abandoned it pretty quickly; it seems like a lot of work to erase QWERTY from my brain all to learn a completely new layout for a relatively minor bump in typing speed. Plus, the majority of the English speaking world uses QWERY, so you’d then have to play mental Twister anytime you needed to use a keyboard that wasn’t yours.

Virtual keyboards on phones and tablets add another layer of complexity to the puzzle; I, as a matter of preference, loathe typing anything on my phone. I even dislike sending texts. I sit there plucking at letters thinking, “this would be so much better and faster on my computer.” They do have the added feature of predictive text, which as we all known, can be a mixed blessing, and always seems on its worst behavior when you’re texting your mom or your boss. I know some people swear by Swype, and actually enjoy writing using the relatively new digital interfaces, so if that’s your jam, go for it!

You have a world of possibilities at your finger tips (ba-dum-ching) when it comes to selecting the right keyboard. I’m not suggesting any one way is the best, but I do implore you to consider the medium through which you forge your wordy worlds. A painter would painstakingly select her brushes and a soccer player tests many types of cleats before he plays in a game, so why would you not do the same for what is arguably, the most important physical tool for a modern writer?

If you’ve got any specific questions, either Tweet me at @OliverJGray, or leave them in the comments below. If you can’t tell, I’ve got keyboard fever.

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?

Thank, Thanked, Thanking, Thankful

I wanted to write Thanksgiving beer post, but everyone already beat me to the “10 Beers to Pair with Turkey” idea and Stan had the satire down pat, so I figured I’d skip adding to the pile of festively uninspired listicles.

Besides, Thanksgiving never quite felt like my holiday. It felt like a day we cooked a huge bird as a meal because we were supposed to, because we didn’t have school or work, because everyone else was doing it, and it was weird to say, “oh no, we don’t do Thanksgiving” like some kind of horrible emotionless alien. As an expat you learn to adapt and blend in where you can, which means adopting the traditions and customs of your new land, even if they include bizarre things like pumpkin flavored beers and coffees. As we’d inevitably celebrate – sometimes with American friends, sometimes with our English-playing-American family unit – I came to realize that the food was just a catalyst, cranberry- and gravy-based lubrication for a mental moment of acknowledging and appreciating who you are, who you love, and who loves you, too. To give thanks is universal, a human default. Thanksgiving is just an end of November conduit for channeling the human spirit.

I leap-frogged off of Bryan (with a pass through Spin Sucks) and decided to mash my calloused writing nubs against the keyboard to express my own thanks. Much like I don’t need Valentine’s day to show my love, I don’t need Thanksgiving to give my thanks, because I actively try to do it everyday, in little ways. That said, a special spiritual power resides deep in the booming caverns of directly and purposefully saying “thank you.”

The original assignment was to write down all the things you were thankful for in 10-minutes, but since I have a mortal fear of counting down clocks from years of playing Nintendo, I’m just going to keep writing until my brain says, “OK, that looks pretty good.” I was never very good with rules, anyway.

So, in no particular order of favoritism, nor intentional slight from accidentally leaving someone out, I am thankful for:

1. My wife and best friend, Tiffany, who despite not even liking beer, tolerates and then encourages my hobby-turned-second-job because she knows how happy it makes me.
2. My dad, who somehow, in ways I still don’t understand, inspires even more now that he’s gone.
3. My mom, Denise, for having the generous foresight to give birth to me, and being an unwavering, enthusiastic cheerleader no matter what I do.
4. My sister, Becca (who completes the trifecta of “super important women in my life”) for always putting me in my place, and understanding me the way only a sibling can.
5. My cats, Pandora and Prometheus, for their dog-like loyalty, dogged commitment to laziness, and amazing ability to always make me smile.
6. Stan Hieronymous, who, through a single retweet about 2 years ago, gave me the courage to write about beer the way I want to write about beer.
7. Kristi Switzer, for taking me seriously and giving me a chance to work on projects I only would have dreamed of as a post-grad writing whelp.
8. Cathy Alter, for hard but important reviews of my work, and giving me enough emotional strength to finish a masters thesis I was tempted to give up on.
9. Candace Johnson, who always gives me advice no matter how clumsily I ask for it, and makes me a better editor, even if she doesn’t know it.
10. Justin, for being friendship immortal, the unrelenting encourager, the one I always look up to and look forward to seeing again.
11. Randy, for the memes and sanity checks.
12. Bryan, for being equal parts muse and comedian, wise and wise-cracking (plus I guess all that data is pretty good).
13. Melody, for being my writing opposite, my Hopkins-bestie, and for generally using her powers for good.
14. My boss, Becky, who will probably never read this, for her flexibility, understanding, and uncanny propensity to never stress me out.
15. Alan, for the Twitter chats, and reminding me that my voice actually matters sometimes.
16. Phil, for being my first, and longest-lasting, never-met-in-real life blogging friend.
17. Beth and Betsy, for being some of my most loyal readers, and for commenting on this blog more than anyone else.
18. Jeff Alworth, for being the kind of blogger I aspire to be, for his excellent writing, and peerless industry insight.
19. Mike, for showing me that my near future is going to be way more rewarding than I could have imagined.
20. Chuck Wendig, for countless literary kicks in the pants, hours of entertainment, and proof that dedication to your own way is a worthy and glorious pursuit.
21. The Mid-Atlantic Beer Bloggers – Scott, Ed, G-LO, Liz, Doug, Josh, Andrew, Jake,  Carlin, Sean, and Matt – who have created and fostered a community that becomes more and more important to me every day.
22. My keyboard, for its daily masochism and thankless devotion to our cause.
23. My camera for fluttery shuttering and elegant aperturing.
24. My left arm, for not giving up, even thought it totally could have (maybe should have) by now.
25. Heavy Seas Beer (namely Hugh, Caroline, and Tristan), for always having an open door, full kegs, and enough pirate in their beer to please my inner child and outer adult.
26. Jailbreak Brewing, for opening dangerously close to my home, and being delightfully helpful anytime I have a silly question.
27. Hopkins Scribes, for their artistry, talent, and writerly reciprocation.
28. The dirt in my yard, for growing things when I really needed some life in my life.
29. My neighbors, for being the family we chose.
30. My hands, for being my single most important tool.
31. My brain, for thinking my hands get too much credit.
32. My eyes, for being my doorman to the beauty of this world.
33. This blog, for giving me an outlet where all other outlets would have said no.
34. Tolkien, for giving me a light for when all other lights go out.
35. My running shoes (in whatever incarnation they’re in now) for pounding pavement to uphold the veneer of vanity.
36. My shower, for being the brainstorming supercenter of my entire existence.
37. Notes A through G, majors and minors, melodies and harmonies, and the decadent vibrations of life.
38. England, for my cultural grounding, for my family, for all that real cask ale.
39. America, for opportunity even at the worst of times, for order even in chaos, for dry-hopped and barrel-aged freedom.
40. Beer, for being a near inexhaustible font of ideas, topics, and creativity, whether in kettle or on page.

Some other friends have played along too! If you decide to join in, shoot me a link, and I’ll add you below:

• Bryan – This is Why I’m Drunk
• Doug – Baltimore Bistros and Beer
• Jake – Hipster Brewfus

I am thankful she’ll pose for me in the waft of yeast, in front of stainless, and still have that beautiful smile.