Stonch lives in London, where he runs a pub.Beer and identity
I try and avoid the old "quotable quotes" on beer, their impact deadened by overuse. Few have become more hackneyed than this from Frank Zappa:
"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer".Individuals define themselves through an eclectic jumble of identifiers. Beer can be one of them. A person may not have explored the beer styles of the world, and to them an ersatz lager brand the aficionado would scoff at might be the only show in town. It isn't because the taste is irreplaceable. It's because the sight of that bottle or can offers familiarity, comfort and a sense of belonging.
For this reason a Pole might be gladdened to see Zywiec or Tyskie on a Dublin supermarket shelf. Speight's of New Zealand shipped their beers across the globe to be sold in a temporary bar by the Thames. Czechs complain about the scarcity of Gambrinus - the nation's favourite - outside of their own borders, even though Budvar and Pilsner Urquell have a foothold almost everywhere. And why else does Bintang from Indonesia, a brew with few redeeming features other than fluidity, turn up in Amsterdam?
Of course, there is another less palatable side to this. Each of the "national beers" I mentioned above are brewed at the behest of a massive multinational brewer, manipulating the home country's market from headquarters far away. Nonetheless, people who have grown up with a brand of beer might continue to identify with it, and seek it out when abroad. That's why so many pale yellow beers, largely indistinguishable in terms of flavour, are shipped around the world. Beer is more than just what's in the glass, and that's why the culture that surrounds it is so rich.
10 comments:
All very true Jeff. In fact in Germany most beer drinkers are totally loyal to their local beer and think all others are awful, no matter what the "actual" quality of their local beer.
Andy, you've disturbed the elephant in the room by pointing out the problem with what I've written! It seems the beers that the vast majority of people have such loyalty to just aren't very good.
A shame people dont choose their LOCAL beer. That would be better.
Because of Canada's internal prohibitions on trade (meaning unless provinces have an accord, you get what is brewed within the province) our affiliations are generally local even if still pretty much macro crap and even with the pervasive ads for Molson's Canadian. On top of that, we have licensed US beers as well as value priced buck a beer brands that are fairly anonymous in terms of locality but suit the commodity beer drinker fine. That being said, your average Canadian will insist that US beer is bad and the stuff from other countries is so strange (warm, floaties, darker than thin pee) as to be dangerous.
Sometimes it works for ale. I always think that London Pride is a good example of a beer that appeals to more than just the usual real ale lovers, because it's a good brand and gives us Londoners a nice warm feeling whenever we see it. St Austell strikes me as having a similar "regional pride" appeal. Of course, both are great beers as well.
Agreed Stonch. Lion Breweries are however arguably still a New Zealand Company.
Does that mean American ex-pats find themselves longing for Miller and Budweiser? I hope not.
Beer Luv
Here in the Philadelphia area we have Yuengling which is much better than the Bud/Miller/Coors style lager. It is mainly distrubuted to the east coast so whenever I see it outside of the Philadelphia/Pennsylvania area it is a source of pride. That being said it is better than the macros but not much else.
Michael, if I am ever out of the states long enough to become an ex-pat I hope that i never long for B/M/C beers.
few redeeming features other than fluidity - CLASSIC!!
Two things: I think stuff like Bud is too big to have any real pride in it if you see it abroad. It's American, but not local -- it's like seeing McDonald's. It's more like American cultural hegemony than pride in seeing your local brand elsewhere. It would be totally different if I saw Stone's Arrogant Bastard in Paris than finding Bud (which of course you know you can).
Also, it seems that one's response to the beer one finds abroad might also be affected by the reason one is abroad. I spent most of the '90s in Europe because I wanted something different from the pervasive American culture. So a Bud was the last thing I wanted. But if I were abroad not so much by choice but because I had to be (for whatever reason), then a Bud might be a welcome sight.
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