Mr. Beaumont wrote a post on linking musical composition and beer. Here is a little bit of stuff that leaked out of my cluttered brain while there seems to be a trend in posting about art and beer.
Beer had a starting point much like rock n' roll. You can link metal or noise rock back to Tin-Pan Alley. From there you can link it to baroque, the romantic era, etc. Western culture is run by trends. These trends are stolen, imitated, expanded and end up evolving. It's those with popularity or a fresh new spin on appearance that give these trends roots in history. The mainstream states one thing is "in" and for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction... punk rock.
The one thing that I feel is missing from most peoples perception of music is attitude. Punk rock isn't a genre. Argue if you wish, but it's not. It's attitude, it's a lifestyle, it's heart, it's soul, and it is the fire that burns within the creator. Yet, punk rock in it's earliest form isn't that different from rock n' roll in it's composition. All the basic ingredients are there (also, note even symphonic pieces of music are known to have I-V-I progressions...just like rock). Don't think jazz never had it's sub-genres either or attitude placement on similar concepts. Just follow Miles Davis and his progression of albums from start to finish. The same? nope.
My link to beer is keeping in mind why styles are even noted. Labels are placed for marketing, consumers or for writers. It's easier to write about something when you give it a name, a face, or a personality that you can link to something, such as I.P.A. or Light Lager. Rolling Stone Magazine was wretched for trying to classify everything in music, but they also had image to uphold and trends to set on covers of magazines and billboards. Beer is doing the same thing.
This is where I look at BJCP and respect it's loyalty to it's contents. It rarely gets updated and the classics remain the same. However, it doesn't leave room for much more than "classics." What a boring world we'd live in if music stopped at The Clash. I love The Clash, but they just opened up some gates for newer, exciting, more experimental musics. The BJCP disregards this as if new means renegade and simply give them a category 23 and say "duke it out you bunch of punks. Your wild, out-landish, improvisational beers will never be classics."
This gives reasons to why I enjoy the BA(Brewers Association). They embrace the idea of new and old. They don't want to slap the hands of creativity. Why put a barrel aged imperial gratzer up against an abbey spruce beer by just calling it a "specialty beer/other." In competition it would be just to narrow focus outside of personal preference. The BA allows for such things. For example, they have a Mild Ale category and a Session Beer category. I'll agree a mild ale is a fantastic session ale. But a 3-4% North American hoppy blonde lager might drink pretty smooth as well. The BA is taking a very non-institutional approach and not creating standards, just helping describe to people what attitude and personality they should find in the beer.
It saves competitions running like the CBA's where a dunkel should compete against a kellierbier. Hmmmm... try as hard as you want to link them similar, they are different! Apples to oranges, but at least they are both unfiltered beers. Try being a judge on that particular panel and debate merits of beer styles and judging guidelines.
It also works for writers. Writers love to write, just not that much. Some specialty beers would take a paragraph to write to actually name the ingredients or conditions that make it special. It also allows writers the hope that they can place a label on something and later in history be known for coining the phrase. Maybe not, but it happened in music magazines all the time.
Which will also bring me to the point that most critics and writers love to harp on the qualities and flaws of others. They like to classify and pick apart every little thing. They will make comments on composition of things they have never composed. Some people are creators; Some people are critics. The artists, they are the ones bound by labels created by others. The artists that create their own label are trying too hard. The ones that create and let a classic take its course, they are legit. The artist educates themselves on the world that surrounds them. They know the in and out of every brush stroke. They build a vocabulary and knowledge through education then work with it or against it to create.
Consider the actual composition of music and what a "note" is. A notated note is just a black dot on lines and spaces. It represents something in music. No matter how many times you see "A" or "C#" sonically they are a one time deal. Music is notated for different reasons, either because recordings didn't exist, or it was to be played for others. Beethoven had a terrible time trying to write his improvisations down, but he tried. Brewers bottle beer and write ingredients, mashing regimes, etc. Yet, even the weather outside will change that beer. It may always be close, but not always the same. Beer is art. It's playful. Good beer can be improvised and it doesn't have to be made over and over.
Someone tried to tell me a great brewer can make one beer the same over and over. One part of me agrees. But, the real brewer is okay with improvising with what is around to make a good beer. It may vary from time to time and may never be made a second time, but it doesn't discount the quality. You will discount the work of Van Gogh because he didn't duplicate the same thing every time?
Genres and labels also educate. People learn from reference points. Think of a dog, it has a Class, Family, Genus, Species, then it has different breeds, and on top of that pet dogs have a name given to distinguish. A dog is a dog, but try saying that to a dog lover with a prize winning dog.
A beer is a beer. Some beer deserves respect or distinction and sometimes no matter how much respect it deserves you should just put on your best (worst) leather jacket, pop the crown, slam it back (or shotgun it!) and start a mosh pit.
Beer had a starting point much like rock n' roll. You can link metal or noise rock back to Tin-Pan Alley. From there you can link it to baroque, the romantic era, etc. Western culture is run by trends. These trends are stolen, imitated, expanded and end up evolving. It's those with popularity or a fresh new spin on appearance that give these trends roots in history. The mainstream states one thing is "in" and for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction... punk rock.
The one thing that I feel is missing from most peoples perception of music is attitude. Punk rock isn't a genre. Argue if you wish, but it's not. It's attitude, it's a lifestyle, it's heart, it's soul, and it is the fire that burns within the creator. Yet, punk rock in it's earliest form isn't that different from rock n' roll in it's composition. All the basic ingredients are there (also, note even symphonic pieces of music are known to have I-V-I progressions...just like rock). Don't think jazz never had it's sub-genres either or attitude placement on similar concepts. Just follow Miles Davis and his progression of albums from start to finish. The same? nope.
My link to beer is keeping in mind why styles are even noted. Labels are placed for marketing, consumers or for writers. It's easier to write about something when you give it a name, a face, or a personality that you can link to something, such as I.P.A. or Light Lager. Rolling Stone Magazine was wretched for trying to classify everything in music, but they also had image to uphold and trends to set on covers of magazines and billboards. Beer is doing the same thing.
This is where I look at BJCP and respect it's loyalty to it's contents. It rarely gets updated and the classics remain the same. However, it doesn't leave room for much more than "classics." What a boring world we'd live in if music stopped at The Clash. I love The Clash, but they just opened up some gates for newer, exciting, more experimental musics. The BJCP disregards this as if new means renegade and simply give them a category 23 and say "duke it out you bunch of punks. Your wild, out-landish, improvisational beers will never be classics."
This gives reasons to why I enjoy the BA(Brewers Association). They embrace the idea of new and old. They don't want to slap the hands of creativity. Why put a barrel aged imperial gratzer up against an abbey spruce beer by just calling it a "specialty beer/other." In competition it would be just to narrow focus outside of personal preference. The BA allows for such things. For example, they have a Mild Ale category and a Session Beer category. I'll agree a mild ale is a fantastic session ale. But a 3-4% North American hoppy blonde lager might drink pretty smooth as well. The BA is taking a very non-institutional approach and not creating standards, just helping describe to people what attitude and personality they should find in the beer.
It saves competitions running like the CBA's where a dunkel should compete against a kellierbier. Hmmmm... try as hard as you want to link them similar, they are different! Apples to oranges, but at least they are both unfiltered beers. Try being a judge on that particular panel and debate merits of beer styles and judging guidelines.
It also works for writers. Writers love to write, just not that much. Some specialty beers would take a paragraph to write to actually name the ingredients or conditions that make it special. It also allows writers the hope that they can place a label on something and later in history be known for coining the phrase. Maybe not, but it happened in music magazines all the time.
Which will also bring me to the point that most critics and writers love to harp on the qualities and flaws of others. They like to classify and pick apart every little thing. They will make comments on composition of things they have never composed. Some people are creators; Some people are critics. The artists, they are the ones bound by labels created by others. The artists that create their own label are trying too hard. The ones that create and let a classic take its course, they are legit. The artist educates themselves on the world that surrounds them. They know the in and out of every brush stroke. They build a vocabulary and knowledge through education then work with it or against it to create.
Consider the actual composition of music and what a "note" is. A notated note is just a black dot on lines and spaces. It represents something in music. No matter how many times you see "A" or "C#" sonically they are a one time deal. Music is notated for different reasons, either because recordings didn't exist, or it was to be played for others. Beethoven had a terrible time trying to write his improvisations down, but he tried. Brewers bottle beer and write ingredients, mashing regimes, etc. Yet, even the weather outside will change that beer. It may always be close, but not always the same. Beer is art. It's playful. Good beer can be improvised and it doesn't have to be made over and over.
Someone tried to tell me a great brewer can make one beer the same over and over. One part of me agrees. But, the real brewer is okay with improvising with what is around to make a good beer. It may vary from time to time and may never be made a second time, but it doesn't discount the quality. You will discount the work of Van Gogh because he didn't duplicate the same thing every time?
Genres and labels also educate. People learn from reference points. Think of a dog, it has a Class, Family, Genus, Species, then it has different breeds, and on top of that pet dogs have a name given to distinguish. A dog is a dog, but try saying that to a dog lover with a prize winning dog.
A beer is a beer. Some beer deserves respect or distinction and sometimes no matter how much respect it deserves you should just put on your best (worst) leather jacket, pop the crown, slam it back (or shotgun it!) and start a mosh pit.
The BA guidelines have 140 styles defined and are used for the GABF (3500 entries) and World Beer Cup (3300 entries) competitions. The size of these competitions support a large number of defined styles.
ReplyDeleteThe BJCP guidelines have 23 style categories and are used at competitions with much smaller entry sizes (typically max out around 750, but lots of BJCP comps can have as few as 50-100 entries).
While I don't care for some of the specifics of the CBAs, it would be absolutely insane for them to use the BA guidelines.
Keep in mind that neither the BA or BJCP guidelines in any way attempt to capture and define all beer styles. They are meant to work for the competitions they are intended for.