With his renowned intellectual rigour, Michael Jackson cuts through the crust to solve one of Beerdom’s hitherto impenetrable mysteries
Many people consider that the greatest advance in the progress of humankind was the invention of the wheel. It was a clever idea – and a nice shape – concedes my fellow columnist Dave Barry, of the Miami Herald. He’s a very perceptive fellow, Dave, and I have always been proud to have him as a profe...
By Michael Jackson
from Issue 13 published on 03/08/2007
Michael Jackson reached for literary stardom…but was nudity artistically justified?
So many respected authors have written for Playboy that ambitious scriveners regard an assignment there as a recognition of a certain status. Like a kid imagining his name in a Cup Final team, I used to look at the mug shots on the Playbill page and fancy my chances.
I had the Write Stuff: the unru...
By Michael Jackson
from Issue 12 published on 25/05/2007
Michael Jackson on Finland, seagulls’ eggs, Imperial Stout and a brush with death
This was farther than I had ever been. It was my longest and strangest journey yet.
It was farther than the Land of the Midnight Sun, where, deep inside the Arctic Circle, I ate seagulls’ eggs, and seal meat, washed down by the local beer from the world’s northernmost brewery: Mack, of Tromsø, Norw...
By Michael Jackson
from Issue 9 published on 22/11/2006
And what remedies to apply the morning after
Can you get a hangover from reading about drink?
Our round-up of the beer scene in Japan stirred a wave of nostalgia for the many wonderful beers and brewery tours I have enjoyed there in my dozen or so visits over the years. But such pleasures come at a price. The more memorable the beers, the mor...
By Michael Jackson
from Issue 8 published on 27/09/2006
When you hear the sound of brass, take the trolley
Here’s a test of your beer knowledge. Which city in the world has the most breweries?
Do you know? Or (supposing it were a question in your pub quiz), which city would you guess? Pilsen, Munich, Dortmund, Copenhagen, Burton, Dublin, Milwaukee…Mexico City?
None of the above. You may well have chose...
By Michael Jackson
from Issue 7 published on 28/07/2006
How the West was won: part one
From Harrogate to Hollywood?” With a sub-heading saying: “From Betty’s Tea Room to Barney’s Beanery.” What do you think? I’m working on a title for my projected nose’n’tell book about my travels in the West. “From Oklahoma to Oregon might be more geographically accurate, but it lacks grit.
Okay, so...
By Michael Jackson
from Issue 6 published on 18/05/2006
It looks like a Burgundy or Port, but it’s a barley wine
It was a sacred place, for heaven’s sake - a shrine. Now I go to pay my respects and it has a sign saying Hotel du Vin. This is adding insult to injury; dedicating to wine a building that was previously the Brakspear’s brewery.
“Every inch of the superb brewery architecture has been converted,” pur...
By Michael Jackson
from Issue 5 published on 24/03/2006
What happens when you have a Mass at the mash-tun?
The priest had a glint in his eye, and was warming to his theme: the role of St Nicholas as the patron saint of bakers, brewers and distillers.
My German does not stretch much beyond Maischpfanne, Lauterböttich or Sudhaus, but the priest’s expansive gestures made it clear that he saw the products o...
By Michael Jackson
from Issue 4 published on 27/01/2006
There’s lager and lager – and Michael Jackson has discovered a gem
When Jack the Lad asks for Stella, is it the barmaid he’s after, or the beer? Come to that, how many lager-drinkers notice that their favourite beer has a girl’s name – or wonder why?
If you are a gentleman and a scholar, you will know that Stella is the Latin word for star. It could apply to any h...
By Michael Jackson
from Issue 3 published on 12/01/2006
Michael Jackson on the extraordinary power of some great American beers
I am constantly asked, “How many beers do you taste each day?” You would think I was engaging surreptitiously in some pleasurable vice, rather than working.
This aspect of my work reaches a peak in late September or early October each year. When I say that I taste about 150 beers in a three-day ses...
By Michael Jackson
from Issue 2 published on 16/11/2005
Michael Jackson doesn’t drink Pepsi. He muses about brews (but who interviewed whom?)
Being called Michael Jackson is a mixed blessing. I have been accustomed to it for many years but recent months have been a trial, as you can imagine. So let’s get that endlessly-raised question out of the way first.
Are you offered special favours when you make a reservation at a restaurant or hot...
By Michael Jackson
from Issue 1 published on 26/08/2005
