Food photography is so much harder than beer photography
Tiramisu, but with a nice strong stout instead of the liqueur or fortified wine the recipe might call for,1 has become one of those things that I’ll make at the slightest provocation. As a staff treat for a looming busy night, if some newly released beer seems like it might work nicely, or if I find a kilo of mascarpone on special; pretty much any excuse will do. It’s always a hit, so I’m well overdue to share what I’ve learned more widely than I can share the thing itself. You deserve a treat — but then we have to have a quick chat about some outdated terminology you’ll probably see when shopping for the right beer to go in it.
Last week, as I was helping out on a canning run at the brewery, I was listening to the ‘Why Brut IPA Never Hit It Big’ episode of the Taplines podcast,1 and it’s had me thinking and reminiscing and pondering ever since. That conversation (between journalist Dave Infante and brewer Kim Sturdavant, who developed the style and coined the name) is well worth a listen, and I don’t really disagree anywhere, but as someone who was bartending through the peak of the phenomenon and who really loved those beers, remembers them fondly and looks for their echoes to this day, I have a few thoughts to add.2
Like a New Zealander excited when the country is mentioned out loud in overseas media or just actually included on a map, I’m always interested when beer pops up in unexpected places. Last Friday’s NYT crossword had ipa among its solutions, which itself isn’t uncommon — the crowded design of American crosswords mean they reuse some three-letter words a lot — but the clue specifically referencing hazy struck me, and I wondered if that was new, and what (if anything) it might mean.
And if you gaze long into the haze, the haze also gazes into you…
This piece first appeared in the August 2017 edition of SOBA’s magazine, The Pursuit of Hoppiness ― a thing which has evolved a lot recently and spawned a nicely-maintained online incarnation, among other improvements. I’ve seen that version of this post handed around a bit already, but I wanted to also share it here (as I have done with other pieces). Overtly hazy beers remain a hot-button topic (as you may already have noticed), but I think the whole thing is most useful as a microcosm for how we think about history and fashion and matters of taste overall…
As I sit down to write this, I’m finishing off a glass of some newfangled hazy beer from an “independent” brewery not far from here. It’s distinctly murky, which blunts its otherwise-lovely golden colour but it’s got a nice amount of flavour without too much bitterness. I could see myself getting used to it. “Sparkling Ale”, they call it. From a Coopers Brewery in Adelaide, founded as recently as 1862! That’s basically just yesterday, given that we humans have been making beer for some 7,0001 years…
I’m a big fan of sour beers. I like what they do to my brain, in that they’re (often) delicious (to me). But I also like what they do to the brains of other people — speaking as a bartender, host-of-tastings, and general observer of the business. Nothing more efficiently upends a newbie’s naïve understanding of “what beer is”,1 and nothing seems so capable of making professionals spout nonsense. After a few recent articles and tasting sessions,2 I just want to take a moment to defend sour as a character and as a category.
