Fergus on 'Why beer matters'

Fergus on why beer matters

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while now but breaking into the Wikio top 50 beer and wine blogs has prompted me to actually do it (no I don’t know what Wikio means either, ask Sean, anyway our blog is no. 42).

Pete Brown, beer writer extraordinaire, organized a competition to give away his prize for being crowned beer writer of the year 2009. I don’t actually know if there was a crowning ceremony but it’s nice to think there was one, maybe it came with a red cloak and sceptre and a swan chorus.

Anyway the prize was a trip to the Budvar Brewery and the competition was to write a few words about why beer matters.

I thought about entering but actually, I brew beer for a living, it probably best left to others to write about it. But it did get me thinking about if beer was important and why.

You’ll be unsurprised to discover that I do think beer is important.

Throughout most of my life it has mattered to me and I expect it to continue to matter to me for many years to come.

I am a brewer, so it provides my main source of income, my other income stream being the £10 I made on e-bay selling two old fish tanks, and having an income matters to my bank and me, in that order.

I enjoy being a brewer, not just enough to make it to the weekends, because there aren’t many, but actually enough to say that I’m passionate about it. I care about the responsibility that comes with brewing beers that have been brewed for decades and in some cases over a 100 years. I care about helping to ensure Adnams exists long after I have left and I care about brewing beer that people can enjoy.

But beer mattered to my life in other ways before I knew what hops were or that fish had swim bladders.

It brought people together and broke the awkward silences, it was a way of celebrating or commiserating, a part of the coming together of friends and communities, or just watching the world go by.

I’ve never seen drinking as dangerous or anti-social, quite the opposite. It is the most social of alcoholic drinks. It loses something when drunk in isolation, not that it can’t be enjoyed watching the X factor on a Saturday night, or whatever you kids are watching these days, more that a dimension of the enjoyment is missing, like going to see a comedian on your own, it’s fine laughing by yourself, but it’s always better in company.

I know of course that in excess it can be harmful but in the main I have a positive view of alcohol in general (Tia Maria being one of the exceptions) and beer in particular.

Obviously the alcohol in beer plays it’s part in our enjoyment of it but I think beer offers more than that, it gives us simplicity or complexity, a challenge to our taste buds or a familiar friend.  It brings together the flavours of barley and hops and yeast with the deliberate designs of man.  The best beers for me are those that are balanced and are part of an evenings enjoyment rather that the focal point of it. They should have interesting things to say but not strangle the conversation. We are apparently social animals and beer for me forms part of those ritual gatherings.

I don’t suppose in the great scheme of things that, in itself, beer matters, but the people involved in making it, selling it, serving it and drinking it do and as long as people enjoy drinking it then it should matter.

I need to go now and sample some beer so to summarise;
Beer matters.