It's the beer talking

Could beer benefit from a bit of descriptive prose, as found on the back of wine bottles? Or is ‘malty’ and ‘hoppy’ good enough for us beer drinkers? Jonathan Goodall reports

Approaching beer from a background in poncey wine writing, I find most beer labels about as easy to crack as the enigma code.

Do I want a beer that’s ‘hoppy’ or ‘malty,’ or should I really push the boat out and go for one that’s ‘hoppy and malty,’ preferably ‘traditionally brewed’?

Scratching my head in my local offie the other day, I really couldn’t decide – until I found a bottle of Adnams Broadside describing itself as “rich in fruitcake aromas, almonds and conserved fruit.” Is it a coincidence that Suffolk-based Adnams is both a brewer and a wine merchant? I’ll let you decide.

The wine market has boomed since the mid-1980s when New World wineries, notably the Australians, began sticking grape varieties and tasting notes on their labels. Through simple communication consumers developed an interest in what they were drinking and gained sufficient confidence to experiment. But New World wines aren’t new any more and the beer market is changing. Yes, it’s still dominated by the bland and the mainstream but there’s never been such a choice of specialist beers, and their trump card is taste.

Wheat beers are vying with fruit beers; dark lagers and imported bottled lagers are competing with premium British bottled beers; American pale ales and craft beers are beginning to kick butt. And many of these beers, being of higher alcoholic strength, are encroaching into wine’s wind-down after-work territory where they are served in wine-style glasses and sipped, slightly chilled, as.....

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By Jonathon Goodall

Section : Beer Issues

Page number : 22