Hopinions: Green Beer or Grinch?
In this edition of Hopinions, Mario and I take on St. Patrick’s Day, green beer and the thought that I’m growing old, grumpy and a grinch.
From: Peter at BetterBeerBlog
For St. Patrick’s Day this year, I decided to do a write up of Irish beers. While I mainly focused on the Dry, Irish Stout style of beers, you asked me why I didn’t include some Irish Reds, a Black and Tan or even *shudder* green beer. I’ll give you the Irish Reds and Black and Tan but green beer? Green. Beer. C’mon! Really? I can’t do it. From a mental standpoint, I get it. It’s just a couple of drops of food coloring at the most into some light colored beer. You’re trying to be festive, I get that. I get that the change in the beer’s flavor, if any, will be nearly undetectable. I understand all of this but I just can’t do it. I can’t drink green beer. I won’t drink green beer. Here’s why.
I think green beer is an affront to good beer culture. Green beer is just some marketing hack to try and get more people to buy bad beer tinted green and sold under the auspices of “being festive”. St. Patrick’s Day has been “Americanized” to the point where it’s a bare shadow of it’s true meaning and traditions. St. Patrick’s day used to be a religious holiday native to Ireland and the Roman Catholic church. I can’t even fault America for ruining this holiday as Ireland has turned it into one giant “Ireland informercial” themselves. Green wasn’t even the original color associated with the holiday either. St. Patrick, the guy for whom the entire holiday was named after, has a shade of blue named specifically for him. If you were going to color a beer for St. Patrick’s Day, turn it blue. Go for historical accuracy for crying out loud.
To a much larger extent, I think green beer promotes alcohol abuse and binge drinking. Miami University has had a Green Beer Day since 1952 to kick off their Spring Break, which may help to explain the popularity of the green-tinting custom. Taking a cursory glance at the official Green Beer Day website, you’ll see it’s nothing more than an online store to sell trinkets, tchotske’s and other garbage. It would seem that St. Patrick’s Day has evolved from being a relgious holiday to a free-for-all excuse to drink unresponsibly. I cannot condone or support that.
Craft beer faces a steep uphill battle for respectibility. Beer in general, has an uphill climb for respectibility. Of all the popular alcoholic beverages, beer still has image issues. Wine is upscale and sophisticated. Distilled spirits are an indulgence that grows finer (and more expensive) with age while cocktails are hip, trendy and exudes youthful exhuberance. Beer? Keg stands, binge drinking and beer bellies. Granted, things are changing. Beer is starting to gain mainstream traction as a beverage unto itself able to hold it’s own in the culinary world. It’s not the macro beers that are leading the charge but craft beers. The truth of the matter is that while you and I are able to differenciate the between good craft beer from less than desireable macro lagers, the general public doesn’t know or care. Beer is beer. Green beer is beer, regardless if it’s green-tinted Budweiser or green-tinted Beatification.
If you really wanted to be festive for St. Patrick’s Day with your beer, brew somthing creative. The Holiday Season sees an influx of higher alcohol beers that trend toward malt-forward flavors but you’ll also see more than your fair share of spiced beers. Fall will usually bring an onslaught of Märzen/Oktoberfest beers as well as pumpkin beers. Spring on the other hand will bring with it Maibocks and Witbiers. If you’re going to be festive with beer, do it by brewing up something creative and experimental, not with food coloring.
From: Mario at Brewed For Thought
I think you’re looking at beer in terms of green and white, but ignoring the shades of green where most of us live.
But before I get into that, I wanted to set the record straight. I never asked why you didn’t include green beer. Here’s what I said:
As far as green beer, I see nothing wrong with it. It’s not the green to avoid, it’s the crappy beer. All the green comes from a drop of food coloring in a pint (or pitcher) of beer. Use good beer, get good green beer. Have some fun!
You left out a huge part of Irish beer being everything non-stout. Sure, we think of Guinness when we think of Irish beer, but they drink lager and ale as much as anyone. What about Harp? Smithwicks? How about an attempt at a black and tan, or better yet, a black and green?
As far as nitrogen, the only thing I’ve seen it add is a big pillowy head with a creamy texture.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
I stand by my opinion of drinking green beer. Have fun. Let’s not take ourselves so seriously that we can’t put a drop of food coloring into a a pint of beer once a year and just have fun.
Yeah, St. Patrick’s day is a bastardization of the original intent of the holiday, but we live in America. Name one holiday that lives up to the original intent? St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo and Mardis Gras are nothing more than excuses to drink for the masses. Memorial Day and Labor Day mean time to break out the BBQ for the unofficial beginning and end of summer. Christmas is about presents, Thanksgiving is about turkey, and all the others are extra days off where we can go buy furniture, cars or whatever else our capitalist hearts desire. But this has nothing to do with beer.
What does have to do with beer is the idea that we have to for some reason seperate fun and beer in the name of better drinking. You said wine is upscale and sophisticated; I’ll call it stuffy. As fine an indulgence as spirits can be, that doesn’t make pounding Irish Car Bombs on St. Patrick’s Day any more refined than drinking a pint of green beer.
I say spike that pint of beer with a drop of food coloring, or if that drives you crazy, toss a fresh cone or two of hops into the pint, that will take care of your green. Preferably, add those things to a quality beer, brewed locally and not a mass marketed macro swill. If St. Patrick’s Day were such an afront to quality beer I would suspect brewpubs would close or discourage any kind of St. Patrick’s Day celebration, but they don’t. They embrace the day.
Rather than agrue about the merits of the holiday, how about some choices for St. Patricks Days to come? If we had to do it all over again tomorrow, what are you drinking for the greenest of green days?
From: Peter at BetterBeerBlog
I’ll cede the fact that nothing here lives up to its original intent any more. Traditions change as the times change and I’m sure 50 years from now Christmas will be celebrated much differently. Maybe PETA will get their way and we’ll all be having Tofurkey for Thanksgiving (man, I hope not. I love me some dead animal). Don’t even get me started Cinco de Mayo. Of all the holidays, this is one I hate the most. In fact, when Cinco de Mayo comes around, we can get to talking about that thing I brought up two weeks ago. I think it definitely warrants some mention if not a discussion.
That being said, the only reasons bars and brewpubs embrace St. Patrick’s Day celebration is for another kind of green: money. This is a huge cash cow for bars, breweries and brewpubs. From a business owner’s perspective, I’d be an idiot to shut down my bar during St. Patrick’s Day (or Cinco de Mayo). My staff would lead a coup d’état for taking away one of their most lucrative nights of work. Let’s just call St. Patrick’s Day for what it is: an excuse to party for the general public and an early Christmas for bar, brewery and brewpub owners.
If St. Patrick’s Day were tomorrow, you can bet your bottom dollar I’m still not drinking green beer. I won’t begrudge the person next to me if they did because it’s a personal choice. Whatever. I don’t agree but hey, that’s your greenback leaving your wallet, not mine. Knowing what I know now, if St. Patrick’s day were tomorrow, I’d celebrate by wearing blue (definitely looking to get pinched, whoo-haa!). I’d still eat corned beef and cabbage (had some last night, actually) and I’d still end up drinking a dry Irish Stout or two, maybe an Irish Red Ale for variety. If I really wanted to celebrate, I’d have a brewday where I make my own Dry, Irish Stout with a box of Lucky Charms thrown into the boil for good luck.
The great thing about tradition is that they don’t have to stay the same, they evolve and change. We can evolve and change with respects to how we go about celebrating things. Instead of waiting for change to happen, we can be the catalyst, we can lead by example, we can be the agents of change. I will no doubt try and develop new traditions for St. Patricks Day that involve moderate drinking, wearing green and a focus on other Irish dishes other than corned beef and cabbage. Hell, I might even give Tofukey a try a week before Thanksgiving this year. Green beer? No thanks, that’s all you.
On a different tangent altogether, one I felt is worth mentioning, today is the late Bill Brand’s birthday. His loss is still being felt in the Bay Area beer scene and I know the Bistro is having a toast tonight to celebrate. Here’s to you, Bill!
From: Mario at Brewed For Thought
Has anyone called St.Patrick’s Day anything more than an excuse to get party for the general public? The same can be said for Cinco De Mayo, but I’ll still cook up some tasty food for any of my friends who are hungry.
Back to the issue of beer (that is what we’re supposed to be talking about, right?), I think you’re focusing too much on the green and not the beer. There are tons of beers out there that celebrate Ireland that make for wonderful green or naturally colored beverage for St. Patrick’s Day. Rogue’s Kell’s Irish Style Lager is a tasty brew. There are also the brews from Moylan’s in Novato, their Dragoon’s Irish Stout is an obvious choice, but many of their beers are in the Irish style. The point is, there’s plenty of beer to drink for St Patrick’s Day, and it doesn’t have to be a boring Dry Irish Stout that we avoid 364 days of the year.
And thanks for mentioning Bill. I won’t be able to make Hayward but I will be toasting to him, tat’s for sure.
March 26th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
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March 27th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
I gotta side with Mario on this one, Peter.
Call me a heretic, but if someone enjoys drinking Bud, green or not, I think that is great! Now I would suggest to someone drinking Bud that they might find more enjoyment drinking a different beer, but it comes down to a matter of what people enjoy, and each person makes his or her own decision. And people will have a tough time respecting craft beer, if we don’t respect people’s personal decisions.
As long as the finest examples of craft beer have names like Arrogant Bastard, Hop Stoopid, or Old Peculiar, do you really think wine, spirits, and beer will be comparable. I sure hope not. Beer ranges the profane to the sublime and that’s what makes it great. And yes, that includes people having fun with green beer. Who has fun with green wine?