Goodbye Beer Hunter

Michael Jackson, respected author and beer legend, passed away on 30 August 2007. There isn’t enough space in this whole magazine for people’s memories of him, for all the funny stories. Instead we devote these pages to some of our favourite Beer Hunterisms, and hope they convey the essence of the man.

The worldwide tide of bland beers will soon have come as far as it can. After that, it can only ebb to reveal the slow brews of lasting character.
Slow Wine, 2001

The ritual of serving a beer in Belgium can be more like a seduction… The tissue wrapping is parted... the wire cage unhooked to release the cork with a sigh or a pop, and the foaming beer poured with loving care, into a glass with the shapely elegance to hold the bouquet, the subtleties of colour, the persistent bead and the complexities of flavour.
Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion, 1997

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.
Beers of the World, issue 2

I may have had a very mild heart attack. That was in October… I have crossed the Atlantic twice since and am hoping to be back and forth before we next meet. If we don’t I shall have only myself to blame, for having tempted the gods once too often.
Beers of the World, issue 10

Never ask for ‘a beer’…
Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion, 1997

I have been required to drink a juniper beer as an accompaniment to a sheep’s head, within which the eyes are regarded as the delicacy.
Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion, 1997

Even on the phone I am unlikely to be mistaken for The Gloved One.
Beers of the World, issue 1

About some beers there is nothing to say. About others I could write a book.
Beers of the World, issue 5

I am sometimes the quiet, courteous, friendly Lithuanian Jewish Yorkshire Englishman that I always was. On other occasions, I look about as fresh and mobile as one of those ancient men found in peat bogs (no doubt in search of an Islay Malt).
All About Beer, 2007

Of course I drink wine. How could I not? Anyone who enjoys aromas and flavours must find some enjoyment in both of the world’s two great fermented drinks. That is Jackson’s Law of the Properly Polygamous Palate. Wine and beer should be choices; it is social stereotyping that denies such freedoms.
Brewer’s Guardian, 2002

In Britain, many lagers are produced under licence from foreign brewers, often to a lower specification than the original. Would a French drinker in Bordeaux choose a fake Liebraumilch (or even, for that matter, a real one)? In more matters than drink, the unconcernedness of the British is both their strength and their weakness.
New World Guide to Beer, 1988

Once caught in its beam, I cannot resist the urge to embrace and explore a country.
Beers of the World, issue 9

As I tread the boards in the service of beer and whisky, I have stretched digression to breaking point.
Beers of the World, issue 7

I once noticed fruit flies in a brewery in an apple-growing region of the United States. The brewer said they were a dreadful nuisance, but gave me an odd look when I suggested he install some spiders.
Great Beers of Belgium, 2005

Great beer has taste. It need not be high in alcohol, but it is full of flavour. Some great beers have only two or three per cent alcohol; others have nine or ten. One might be a summer refresher, the other a wintry nightcap. It is their flavour that makes them great.
Great Beer Guide, 2002

In 1981 I took American home-brewing guru Charlie Papazian on his first visit to the Great British Beer Festival. “Do you think we could use this in the United States?” Charlie asked. As he recalls, my response was positive, but I had a question of my own: “What would we use for beer?”
Beers of the World, issue 2

To appreciate beer fully, it is necessary to choose the right brew for the mood and the moment. That in turn requires a diversity of beers. There can be no single ‘best,’ and I have never named a favourite.
Great Beers of Belgium, 2005

If Europe’s King of Beer were alive today, he would be a Belgian. He would be happy to return to his native land, and take up residence in the towering, gabled and gilded Maisons des Brasseurs in Brussels, the only one of the guild-halls in the Grand’ Place which is still used for its original purpose (as well as housing a small beer-museum).

He would be suffused with joy at the zeal and devotion which his present-day subjects bring to the pursuit of his interests, challenging the world in both the size of their thirsts and the exotic range of their brews.
The World Guide to Beer, 1982

The Lambic family are not everyone’s glass of beer, but no one with a keen interest in alcoholic drink would find them anything less than fascinating. In their ‘wildness’; and unpredictability, these are exciting brews. At their best, they are the meeting point between beer and wine; at their worst, they offer a taste of history.
Zymurgy, 1982

There is a world of arousing aroma and flavour out there. But those of us who enjoy it feel sometimes that we are members of an evangelical cult.
The Independent, 1997

Beer drinkers (in Britain) have been locked in to one of two camps: real ale or lager, with not much room for manoeuvre. A middle ground has for years been trying to open. Perhaps Beers of the World magazine could give them some cohesion.
Beers of the World, issue 1

“You would like to taste all our products?” he said, raising a grandfatherly eyebrow. He seemed even more surprised at the amount of time I devoted to each beer. “You have been doing this all day? At every brewery you visited? Who writes up your notes? You do? When do you do that?”
Great Beers of Belgium, 2005

Time has proved that the pint is just the right quantity to tickle the palate for an expectant moment, rush headlong at the thirst and demand a courteous amount of time for drinking before the next round falls due.

People who drink half-pints are apt to grasp the beer-glass awkwardly, with their little finger sticking out. Anyone who adopts this sort of effete mannerism might be expected to be a half-pint person. Beer-drinking is a robust activity, and fancy behaviour is not encouraged.
The English Pub, 1976

In other lands, beer too often glisters like gimcrack gold, all bright and shiny, and transparent: English beer has impenetrable depths. Other lands’ beers have distinctive tastes, but few have the body and character of an English type.
The English Pub, 1976

English beer is an acquired taste, or a series of acquired tastes, like oysters, steak tartare, or marron glacé. Like sex, it is a pleasure which can better be appreciated with experience, in which variety is both endless and mandatory. The pleasure lies, too, in gaining the experience: the encounters with the unexpected, the possibility of either triumph or disaster, the pursuit of the elusive, the constant lessons, the bittersweet memories that linger. Other countries have as many beers as England has, but no country can offer such a range of distinct tastes.
The English Pub, 1976

A man who doesn’t care about the beer he drinks may as well not care about the bread he eats. Beer may have been man’s staple diet before bread was invented, and these two staffs of life are as comparable as they are closely related. In each case what we seek is a measure of what we deserve.
The World Guide to Beer, 1982

By Sally Toms

Section : Michael Jackson

Page number : 7