DaJudge
March 29th, 2007, 02:33 PM
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March 28, 2007
The Pour
Overcoming a Frat Party Reputation
By ERIC ASIMOV (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/eric_asimov/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
BROOKLINE, Mass.
ANY online communiqu? from Todd and Jason Alstr?m ends with the tagline
?Respect Beer.? It?s hard to know how to interpret that phrase.
Is it a request, a plea for understanding a beverage to which the brothers
are devoting their lives?
Or is it a demand, a threatening line in the sand heightened by the
tendency of the Internet to amplify aggression?
Curious, I traveled to the Boston area last week to meet the Alstr?ms,
whose Web site beeradvocate.com (http://beeradvocate.com/) has become a lightning rod for the
pent-up passions of beer lovers everywhere.
They started it 10 years ago, posting notes on beers they enjoyed or
despised. Now it is a full-featured site with news, essays on beer history
and styles, forums and voluminous notes on brews from around the world.
The Alstr?ms say they have more than 100,000 members. Reversing the
usual direction of print to Web, they?ve begun publishing Beer Advocate
magazine, a glossy monthly about beer and beer culture.
The Web site is just one of the gathering spots for beer lovers ? not the
guys sitting in front of the tube with a six-pack of mass-market brew, but a
rapidly growing body of connoisseurs who are as devoted to their chosen
beverage as wine lovers are to theirs.
On sites like beeradvocate.com, ratebeer.com (http://ratebeer.com/) and realbeer.com (http://realbeer.com/), in blogs
and bars, restaurants and stores in about every big city, beer cognoscenti
debate and argue over beer styles, issues of authenticity, alcohol levels
and of course which beers they like best.
Each of the Web site has its partisans, and crossover is common, but at
beeradvocate.com, discussions seem to get louder, arguments rage more
fiercely and passions flow close to the surface.
We met at the Publick House, a bar and restaurant here on Beacon Street
as devoted as the Alstr?ms to treating beer with love and respect. With
beer memorabilia on the walls and Gothic archways in the dining room,
Publick House resembles dozens of other beer temples around the country.
But the sheer variety of glassware hanging in overhead racks reflects a
desire to treat each genre of beer as special by serving it in the
appropriate vessel. And the ordinary hullabaloo of the packed dining room
has given rise to a new adjoining room, the Monk?s Cell, devoted to the
quiet contemplation of myriad Belgian brews.
At first glance, the Alstr?ms epitomize both sides of the Respect Beer
question. With a shaved head, beard and multiple earrings, Todd, 38,
projects an almost reptilian aggression, seemingly ready to pounce on
anybody who might reject his demand. Jason, 35, offers a quieter
demeanor, taking a little more time to get his words out. You can imagine a
?please? appended to Respect Beer, in the form of a polite request.
In fact, both are far more mild-mannered and thoughtful than they might
appear online. In person, Respect Beer is neither a demand nor a request
but a reasonable approach to a beverage that, given a chance, offers the
same sort of pleasure and conviviality as a good glass of wine. But it needs
the chance.
?I go to a really high-end restaurant, and they come out with a really nice
wine list and a book of cocktails, but the beer list is just something the
waitress recites and they?re all awful,? Todd said. Jason adds, ?That really
disturbs me. But some have caught on and they really get it.?
?It?s a lost opportunity,? Todd insists. ?They could offer such great beers.
Beer enthusiasts need to be more vocal, they need to say something!?
As with so many American wine lovers, it wasn?t until Todd and Jason
Alstr?m traveled to Europe that they discovered what would become their
abiding passion in life. Todd was in the Air Force from 1987 to 1992, at one
point stationed at Greenham Common in England, about 45 miles west of
London. Jason would occasionally visit there, and they would repair to the
local taproom.
?I fell in love with the pub, and those really flavorful ales,? Jason recalled,
as we sipped a selection of Belgian ales before dinner. ?It wasn?t like any
other drinking experience.?
When Todd was discharged and returned to Massachusetts, something was
missing. ?I wasn?t exactly depressed but I just wanted to sit down and
have a few pints of bitter,? he said.
Now smitten, the Alstr?ms brewed their own beer, and, with Todd returning
to the United States smack in the middle of the craft beer revolution, they
tasted copiously of the new brews appearing in just about any style a beer
historian could conjure up, and quite a few more. That?s when they came
up with the idea of posting their reviews on the Internet. Todd quit his day
job in advertising four years ago to devote himself to beeradvocate.com.
Jason left his job as an airline baggage handler just last year. Now, along
with their Web site and magazine they hope to open their own brewery in
the Boston area. But their biggest hope is more ambitious by far.
?One of our main goals is trying to raise the image of beer as a whole and
bring back the beer culture,? Todd said. ?We had a beer culture but
Prohibition kind of reset the button.?
The popular image of beer drinkers has always been the industry?s greatest
strength and its greatest weakness. The slobbering yahoos at the football
game with the bare chests and painted faces; the snarling mud wrestlers
battling over ?tastes great, less filling,? and the usual array of good ol? frat
house antics are all representations from the mass-market beer industry
itself, which has succeeded by aiming low. The cost has been respect, and
the result has been a decades-long battle to win it back.
The Alstr?ms and others in the craft beer industry are determined to
remove the image of rowdiness from beer drinking. At the beer festivals
they sponsor in the Boston area they emphasize beer-and-food pairings,
and they limit the size of the beers served by the brewers in attendance to
tastes, to discourage overindulgence.
?We find a lot of people who learn this culture has nothing to do with the
beer culture they?re used to,? Todd said.
Even Anheuser-Busch, the biggest of the big breweries, has gotten on
board with ?Here?s to Beer,? a campaign and Web site aimed at merchants
and the hard-core beer lovers. Rather than talk about particular brands ?
it doesn?t even mention Anheuser-Busch ? it focuses on education, talking
about history, varieties and styles, and beer-and-food pairings.
?These are places that we haven?t traditionally been,? said Bob Lachky, an
Anheuser-Busch executive. ?Ultimately it?s aimed at the consumer to
rethink beer.?
Still it?s difficult to know how committed the big breweries are to changing
ways of thinking. Even though ?Here?s to Beer? celebrates Ben Franklin the
beer lover, it?s hard to imagine that Anheuser-Busch really wants
mainstream drinkers to rethink beer when the Bud Light commercial is
celebrating ?Mr. Professional Sports Leg Cramp Rubber Outer.?
While fraternity behavior is largely associated with beer drinking, serious
beer lovers have spent years on the outside of polite society.
Without the pastoral mystique that has been appropriated by wine
producers or the suave, sophisticated imagery of the wine drinker, beer
lovers have largely retreated to the antistyle precincts associated with
such proverbial social outcasts as computer nerds and science fiction
fanatics. Bizarre facial hair, unflattering T-shirts and strange headgear are
standard equipment among beer geeks.
?Before the Internet, computer nerds felt on the outside but now they?re
accepted,? Todd said. ?I think beer geeks are the same way. We?ll look
back 10 years from now and remember what it was like.?
In fact, many small breweries with local distribution and minute advertising
budgets seem to have relied on the intensity of Internet discussions to get
the word out about their products. Users of beeradvocate.com seem to
compete to see how fast they can post reviews of new beers, and growing
craft breweries like Stone in California and Dogfish Head in Delaware have
capitalized on the unsolicited marketing.?One of the most powerful things a
site like ours has done is bridge the gap between brewer and the public,?
Jason said. ?We gave people a forum. You can have a new release and
everybody knows about it within seconds. It?s instant feedback.?
The flaming discussions and rants of the online world are nowhere in
evidence at the Publick House. On a recent Monday night, the dining room
and bar were packed with young professionals and even some families,
accompanying their grilled pork loin and salmon with Belgian ales, English
porters, German pilsners and all manner of American brews. At the bar a
couple did a crossword puzzle. At one large table, an animated young
crowd debated jazz history. At another table a foursome discussed the
merits of Stilton versus Humboldt Fog.
Two things were striking: First, nobody was discussing beer. They were
just drinking it. And second, as many women were in the place as men,
something unthinkable 10 years ago, when groups of beer lovers rivaled
video-game players for male dominance.
?As far as the vocal component on the Internet, it?s all men,? Todd Alstr?m
said. ?But at beer festivals and on the social end, it?s more even.?
Looks to me like a sign of respect.
March 28, 2007
The Pour
Overcoming a Frat Party Reputation
By ERIC ASIMOV (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/eric_asimov/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
BROOKLINE, Mass.
ANY online communiqu? from Todd and Jason Alstr?m ends with the tagline
?Respect Beer.? It?s hard to know how to interpret that phrase.
Is it a request, a plea for understanding a beverage to which the brothers
are devoting their lives?
Or is it a demand, a threatening line in the sand heightened by the
tendency of the Internet to amplify aggression?
Curious, I traveled to the Boston area last week to meet the Alstr?ms,
whose Web site beeradvocate.com (http://beeradvocate.com/) has become a lightning rod for the
pent-up passions of beer lovers everywhere.
They started it 10 years ago, posting notes on beers they enjoyed or
despised. Now it is a full-featured site with news, essays on beer history
and styles, forums and voluminous notes on brews from around the world.
The Alstr?ms say they have more than 100,000 members. Reversing the
usual direction of print to Web, they?ve begun publishing Beer Advocate
magazine, a glossy monthly about beer and beer culture.
The Web site is just one of the gathering spots for beer lovers ? not the
guys sitting in front of the tube with a six-pack of mass-market brew, but a
rapidly growing body of connoisseurs who are as devoted to their chosen
beverage as wine lovers are to theirs.
On sites like beeradvocate.com, ratebeer.com (http://ratebeer.com/) and realbeer.com (http://realbeer.com/), in blogs
and bars, restaurants and stores in about every big city, beer cognoscenti
debate and argue over beer styles, issues of authenticity, alcohol levels
and of course which beers they like best.
Each of the Web site has its partisans, and crossover is common, but at
beeradvocate.com, discussions seem to get louder, arguments rage more
fiercely and passions flow close to the surface.
We met at the Publick House, a bar and restaurant here on Beacon Street
as devoted as the Alstr?ms to treating beer with love and respect. With
beer memorabilia on the walls and Gothic archways in the dining room,
Publick House resembles dozens of other beer temples around the country.
But the sheer variety of glassware hanging in overhead racks reflects a
desire to treat each genre of beer as special by serving it in the
appropriate vessel. And the ordinary hullabaloo of the packed dining room
has given rise to a new adjoining room, the Monk?s Cell, devoted to the
quiet contemplation of myriad Belgian brews.
At first glance, the Alstr?ms epitomize both sides of the Respect Beer
question. With a shaved head, beard and multiple earrings, Todd, 38,
projects an almost reptilian aggression, seemingly ready to pounce on
anybody who might reject his demand. Jason, 35, offers a quieter
demeanor, taking a little more time to get his words out. You can imagine a
?please? appended to Respect Beer, in the form of a polite request.
In fact, both are far more mild-mannered and thoughtful than they might
appear online. In person, Respect Beer is neither a demand nor a request
but a reasonable approach to a beverage that, given a chance, offers the
same sort of pleasure and conviviality as a good glass of wine. But it needs
the chance.
?I go to a really high-end restaurant, and they come out with a really nice
wine list and a book of cocktails, but the beer list is just something the
waitress recites and they?re all awful,? Todd said. Jason adds, ?That really
disturbs me. But some have caught on and they really get it.?
?It?s a lost opportunity,? Todd insists. ?They could offer such great beers.
Beer enthusiasts need to be more vocal, they need to say something!?
As with so many American wine lovers, it wasn?t until Todd and Jason
Alstr?m traveled to Europe that they discovered what would become their
abiding passion in life. Todd was in the Air Force from 1987 to 1992, at one
point stationed at Greenham Common in England, about 45 miles west of
London. Jason would occasionally visit there, and they would repair to the
local taproom.
?I fell in love with the pub, and those really flavorful ales,? Jason recalled,
as we sipped a selection of Belgian ales before dinner. ?It wasn?t like any
other drinking experience.?
When Todd was discharged and returned to Massachusetts, something was
missing. ?I wasn?t exactly depressed but I just wanted to sit down and
have a few pints of bitter,? he said.
Now smitten, the Alstr?ms brewed their own beer, and, with Todd returning
to the United States smack in the middle of the craft beer revolution, they
tasted copiously of the new brews appearing in just about any style a beer
historian could conjure up, and quite a few more. That?s when they came
up with the idea of posting their reviews on the Internet. Todd quit his day
job in advertising four years ago to devote himself to beeradvocate.com.
Jason left his job as an airline baggage handler just last year. Now, along
with their Web site and magazine they hope to open their own brewery in
the Boston area. But their biggest hope is more ambitious by far.
?One of our main goals is trying to raise the image of beer as a whole and
bring back the beer culture,? Todd said. ?We had a beer culture but
Prohibition kind of reset the button.?
The popular image of beer drinkers has always been the industry?s greatest
strength and its greatest weakness. The slobbering yahoos at the football
game with the bare chests and painted faces; the snarling mud wrestlers
battling over ?tastes great, less filling,? and the usual array of good ol? frat
house antics are all representations from the mass-market beer industry
itself, which has succeeded by aiming low. The cost has been respect, and
the result has been a decades-long battle to win it back.
The Alstr?ms and others in the craft beer industry are determined to
remove the image of rowdiness from beer drinking. At the beer festivals
they sponsor in the Boston area they emphasize beer-and-food pairings,
and they limit the size of the beers served by the brewers in attendance to
tastes, to discourage overindulgence.
?We find a lot of people who learn this culture has nothing to do with the
beer culture they?re used to,? Todd said.
Even Anheuser-Busch, the biggest of the big breweries, has gotten on
board with ?Here?s to Beer,? a campaign and Web site aimed at merchants
and the hard-core beer lovers. Rather than talk about particular brands ?
it doesn?t even mention Anheuser-Busch ? it focuses on education, talking
about history, varieties and styles, and beer-and-food pairings.
?These are places that we haven?t traditionally been,? said Bob Lachky, an
Anheuser-Busch executive. ?Ultimately it?s aimed at the consumer to
rethink beer.?
Still it?s difficult to know how committed the big breweries are to changing
ways of thinking. Even though ?Here?s to Beer? celebrates Ben Franklin the
beer lover, it?s hard to imagine that Anheuser-Busch really wants
mainstream drinkers to rethink beer when the Bud Light commercial is
celebrating ?Mr. Professional Sports Leg Cramp Rubber Outer.?
While fraternity behavior is largely associated with beer drinking, serious
beer lovers have spent years on the outside of polite society.
Without the pastoral mystique that has been appropriated by wine
producers or the suave, sophisticated imagery of the wine drinker, beer
lovers have largely retreated to the antistyle precincts associated with
such proverbial social outcasts as computer nerds and science fiction
fanatics. Bizarre facial hair, unflattering T-shirts and strange headgear are
standard equipment among beer geeks.
?Before the Internet, computer nerds felt on the outside but now they?re
accepted,? Todd said. ?I think beer geeks are the same way. We?ll look
back 10 years from now and remember what it was like.?
In fact, many small breweries with local distribution and minute advertising
budgets seem to have relied on the intensity of Internet discussions to get
the word out about their products. Users of beeradvocate.com seem to
compete to see how fast they can post reviews of new beers, and growing
craft breweries like Stone in California and Dogfish Head in Delaware have
capitalized on the unsolicited marketing.?One of the most powerful things a
site like ours has done is bridge the gap between brewer and the public,?
Jason said. ?We gave people a forum. You can have a new release and
everybody knows about it within seconds. It?s instant feedback.?
The flaming discussions and rants of the online world are nowhere in
evidence at the Publick House. On a recent Monday night, the dining room
and bar were packed with young professionals and even some families,
accompanying their grilled pork loin and salmon with Belgian ales, English
porters, German pilsners and all manner of American brews. At the bar a
couple did a crossword puzzle. At one large table, an animated young
crowd debated jazz history. At another table a foursome discussed the
merits of Stilton versus Humboldt Fog.
Two things were striking: First, nobody was discussing beer. They were
just drinking it. And second, as many women were in the place as men,
something unthinkable 10 years ago, when groups of beer lovers rivaled
video-game players for male dominance.
?As far as the vocal component on the Internet, it?s all men,? Todd Alstr?m
said. ?But at beer festivals and on the social end, it?s more even.?
Looks to me like a sign of respect.