Beer Radar<\/p>\n
By John Kruger<\/p>\n
“Yes, but have you actually tasted this?\u201d<\/p>\n
(First published by Wine Business Magazine in 2012)<\/p>\n
\u2026is a question I almost blurt out quite often, but I stifle it and nod. It\u2019s the first response after tasting a very occasional new commercial beer that\u2019s pretty damn rough around the edges. It\u2019s usually a beer from a new small time operation but not always. I know tasting is all very individual and one man\u2019s Champagne is another man\u2019s low-carb light beer. Unfortunately there\u2019s always a shocker waiting in that bottle shop beer fridge for me. Sometimes it\u2019s a fermentation issue, or a sparge issue, sometimes I wonder if some brewers think that using old hops will be fine, but the oxidised cheesy character isn\u2019t always complimentary to the style. Sadly, it\u2019s the hop driven beers that sometimes get the stale hops instead of fresh sappy aromatic hops. If the beer is supposed to be conditioned; before adding another 3 big-screen TV\u2019s to the bar area, please at least consider if that money would be better spent on longer conditioning for the beer. It seems as if the quality of the product slips down the list of priorities for some brewers, where I\u2019d consider it to be permanently number one and well above the live band nights and Facebook campaign.<\/p>\n
I find it hard to give people a response to their beer because some people in the brewing business just want to share the beer love, not get a critical response to a friendly gesture. That\u2019s why some people prefer the anonymous feedback from a competition rather that a razor sharp critique from a friend or loved one.<\/p>\n
I can understand how the occasional dodgy beer slips through into the market in the heat of running a small brewery passionately. You love your beer so much, that\u2019s all you drink and your blinkers go on, but tunnel vision doesn\u2019t give a very helpful view of uncharted terrain. Good brewers constantly get feedback from as many people as possible and I\u2019ve also noticed that successful brewers, sometimes surreptitiously, drink a lot of other people\u2019s beers. It\u2019s not just for market research; it also keeps the palate stimulated. Unfortunately the newly commercial brewers often seem to be asking the wrong questions. Instead of pouring a good friend another free beer and asking him or her, \u201cHey, what do you think of this?\u201d Where the answer is an amazingly enthusiastic and positive response like \u201cOh this is amazing, it\u2019s so good. Would you mind pouring me another free beer please? You really should start selling this after I\u2019ve left.\u201d<\/p>\n
A more realistic question you should be asking is \u201cHey, would you pay eight bucks for a glass of this? If you did, how many do you think you\u2019d buy?\u201d Then the answers come back from a very different angle. All of a sudden it\u2019s not an ego stroking, free beer inducing response, but the kind of answer a business owner should be hearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell actually, this beer has a funny medicinal background taste and there\u2019s also a dry husky harshness going on, but it\u2019s cold and drinkable.\u201d might be a more realistic response when the weight of a person\u2019s wallet is thrown into the mix.<\/p>\n
One SA brewer changed one of his beer recipes directly in response to some fairly minor comments left by an anonymous beer judge in a large competition for commercial beers. The next year the brewer entered the resulting beer from the new recipe and won gold. The same brewer is also known to religiously work the taps at night. Not because he\u2019s too tight to hire more bar staff, but because he listens to every comment every customer makes about the beers. He\u2019s not trying to turn the brewery into the biggest business ever, he just wants to be known for damn good beer, and it\u2019s working.<\/p>\n
In the grand scheme of things, that\u2019s what we lovers of a pint of ale or a crisp lager want; damn good beers. The promotions, the hats and cheap sunglasses, the sporting and events sponsorships are all secondary and very short term in the memory compared to the primary thing of importance, the beer. Get that right and when you do, please let me know about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beer Radar By John Kruger “Yes, but have you actually tasted this?\u201d (First published by Wine Business Magazine in 2012) \u2026is a question I almost blurt out quite often, but I stifle it and nod. It\u2019s the first response after tasting a very occasional new commercial beer that\u2019s pretty damn rough around the edges. It\u2019s … Continue reading Yes, but have you actually tasted this?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10,14,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beer","category-beer-awards","category-beer-marketing","category-craft-beer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}