A day doesn't pass where I'm not stopped in the corridor by a fellow student who wishes to talk about some aspect of beer or brewing. The beer renaissance has arrived in South Royalton. The sound of fermentation is in the air, and I like what I hear. The proliferation of interest in craft beer has caused me to think about the brewing industry and the expense that they incur to popularize the latest fad beer. In recent memory the beers have been called "lite," "dry," "clear," "ice," and "red."
The lite beer fad was easy enough to explain, though it may be a bit harder to justify. The premise was simple, lite beer has fewer calories and is therefore less fattening. The problem is that, in order to make a beer that has fewer calories, one must necessarily remove from the beer the malt sugars that give the beer its character, resulting in a watered-down product. Of course another solution to the calorie problem is to drink less beer. Why drink several characterless beers when you can have one truly sensational brew? If your goal is simple intoxication, then lite beer is not a very efficient vehicle for doing that, either. Dry beer was originally a creation of the Asahi Brewing Company in Japan. This is a very technologically advanced brewery. As stated by Michael Jackson, "Asahi ... is better known for the dubious achievement of having invented an almost-tasteless product called Dry Beer." Jackson gives no details of how it is brewed, however Eckhardt says that it is fermented with a genetically engineered yeast strain that can change the normally unfermentable complex sugars to fermentables.
The introduction of clear beer was a new angle for the American beer scene. Countless clear products were being introduced, from clear underarm deodorant to clear dishwashing liquid to clear cola and finally clear beer. As with fads in general, this one was short-lived. The sole-survivor of the clear beer invasion is a Coors product called Zima that is no longer being marketed as a beer. Zima, like beer, is a barley product and is fermented, however, the similarities end there. Coors uses specially added enzymes to the barley to convert the starches to fermentable sugars. The introduced enzymes will reduce all the starches to fermentable sugars, leaving behind none of the familiar malt sugars that provide body and flavor to the beer. In traditional brewing the enzymes that are resident in the grain are utilized for converting the starches and malt sugars are formed in abundance. At two different times during the brewing process, Coors adds high fructose corn syrup to the product. They then include something called "Tastemaker Natural Flavor #12345 to provide the lemon-lime taste, an anti-foaming agent to eliminate any tendency to put a head on it, and since the product still has a faint yellow color, activated carbon is added and filtered out with diatomaceous earth. While this is fascinating, it isn't really beer.
Ice beer has become a standard for virtually every large and regional brewery in America. The idea of ice beer was not created by the brewers in North America. In fact, this notion is actually derived form brewing that originated in the German city of Kulmbach, in Franconia. Kulmbach has had a rich tradition of brewing strong, dark bock beers for over a century. In an attempt to make a truly strong bock the brewers froze the beer and removed the ice crystals. The remaining liquid in the beer contained a higher concentration of alcohol. These beers came to be known as Eisbocks, the most famous of which is made by Kulmbacher Reichelbrau brewery and it is called Bayrisch G'frorns (Bavarian Frozen"). Jackson calls it an "extremely dense-tasting beer,, with a lot of alcoholic warmth in the finish." It has 8 percent alcohol by weight, 10 percent by volume.
Finally there is the tale of the red ale. Traditionally an Irish style, the image of the red ale is part of the newest marketing fad in American brewing.
An old brewery, dating from the 15th century, was run by the GH Lett family at the time of its closure in 1956. A member of that family, George Killian Lett licensed his name and reference to their ruby beer to a French brewery and to Coors in the US. The Coors product is actually a lager rather than an ale, with a malt accent that sets it apart from the rest of their product line. The other major breweries in the US saw the success that Killian's Irish Red was enjoying and introduced Red Dog (Miller) and Red Wolf (Anheuser-Busch). Recent news reports reveal that A-B has bought Seattle's Redhook Brewery and they have signed an agreement with the State of New Hampshire to develop a new Redhook brewery and beer garden on the site of the former Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth.
Fads will come and fads will go, but true quality lives on without the need for gimmicks.
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