While I realize that I’m Mr. Negative and always see the pint glass as half empty almost every time craft beer is featured on mainstream television, I just can’t jump for joy when there’s so little respect paid to beer by the media and so much misinformation. If I have to be the lone voice in the wilderness, so be it. The GQ Top 50 Beer List that the recently released — and which I initially applauded for the most part — has morphed into something else entirely for television. In print, it was merely 50 Beers To Try Right Now but on CBS it has transformed into 50 Beers to Try Before You Die, a very different list indeed. I liked the idea of just suggesting some great beer to try, but making it a “bucket list” gives it too much gravity, too much pressure for the choices to be just right. Plus there’s the whole copyright issue. I recently contributed to a book, 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die, and this seems like a pretty blatant ripoff by CBS. It’s not really copyright infringement, I realize, it just seems like a bad idea given how good the original framing of the list had been. But give the video with host Harry Smith and GQ’s style editor Adam Rapoport a look.
Okay, it started out with the copyright infringing re-named list, which is just plain odd since the actual list they’re talking about is not beer to try before you die. Then, they can’t help but mention that it’s too early to drink and snigger about it like school children. What happened to being professional? Then there’s the horror of seeing an Allagash White with a lemon and orange wedge in the glass, which GQ’s Rapoport characterizes as a wheat or weiss beer, even though it’s a wit beer. With the second beer, Ommegang, the host remarks, surprised or incredulous. “Look at this, it even has a cork!” OMG, a cork. Alert the media. Oh, wait, he is the media. You’d think Harry Smith had never seen a beer with a cork before the way he overreacts. Then there’s his reaction to the glass. “Wow, look at the beer glass!” Rapoport: “It’s like a wine glass.” Harry Smith: “Almost.” Then he references tasting with Michael Jackson several years before and talks about how he tasted, calling it “like drinking wine, you do the nose….” Geez, I’m so tired of this analogy, as if wine holds the patent on how to taste liquids. You don’t think that absolutely every drink that’s tasted critically — be it wine, beer, whisky, cocktails, coffee, tea, whatever — is tasted by smelling it and tasting it in virtually the exact same way. Are their nuanced differences? Probably, but not enough to matter and the point is anytime someone tries to drink a beer by some other method than swilling it at a tailgate party, it’s compared to how wine is tasted because apparently the mainstream media seriously lacks any imagination.
Moving on to Dale’s Pale Ale, Rapoport tells us that hops cause bitterness … and sourness? But apart from beers made sour on purpose from the specific yeast used, sour or acedic flavors are almost always a defect, usually a bacterial infection. Can there be a sour undertone from certain varieties of hops? Maybe, but it’s usually in combination with other factors and it’s certainly not the second thing you think of when listing hops’ effects on beer. Next up is Rodenbach Grand Cru, in the “fancy bottle” and then Anchor Steam Beer. Rapoport at this point claims he loves Budweiser, but says there’s “a role beyond Budweiser,” also stating that Anchor Steam is a lager. And while California Commons do use a lager yeast, nothing else about brewing one is like a typical lager, or anywhere close to a Budweiser or any other adjunct macro lager. Most people, if designating them at all, would place them in a hybrid category. They continue to laugh and joke their way through Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout. Now the last time I ranted about one of these shows, somebody commented that he wanted them to have fun and not be too serious. Fun, yes, I’m all for that, but laughing at the beer they’re tasting and acting immature is just not that fun to me. Couple that with the misinformation, and I’m not entirely convinced these shows do more good than harm for craft beer. Yes, the exposure is good, but it always seems to be at a steep price.
I am glad I missed it… I was mortified just by your play-by-play; imagine if I had actually watched it first hand!
Is it laziness or ignorance or both? Why didn’t the folks at CBS go bring in a “Bona-Fide” beer geek for this one? I would guess they taped this in NYC and I am Sure if Garret Oliver had been available he would have been there in a flash.
All in all, I am glad to know that I am only a few beers away from being ready to “meet my maker”… I’ll alert the wife and kids!
Exposure at a price indeed. Could be worse. Could be talking about which beer were and weren’t triple hops brewed and cold filtered.
I think the most important note is that 6 world-class beers got time on network television. From a non-beer drinking person’s perspective, this might convince them to pick up a bottle of craft beer the next time they are in their local bottle shop. It is unlikely that they will grab a 6 pack of Dale’s, drink it, and go back to this CBS show and agree that “hops give sourness.” Instead they will seek out quality beer publications, such as the Brookston Beer Bulletin, and learn more about beer there.
And here I thought that the 1,001 was a rip off of Mr. Protz’s work.
You mean the one where Roger reviews Grant’s beers that have been out of business for over five years, along with other beers not available at the time of publishing. But no, the 1001 series first began in the early 2000s. There are two series, one by Quintessence Books (which started with 1001 Movies) and Rizolli/Universe (which started with 1001 Books), all before Roger’s 300.
I never said it was good – just prior. 😉
I don’t know if it was quite as bad as all that, Jay. You do make some good points, and even let them off easy on a couple of whoppers — those glasses weren’t “like” wine glasses, there WERE wine glasses, and since when is Yorkshire, home of Samuel Smith, en route from Heathrow to London? — but live television tastings are tough and sometimes you wind up blurting out things you’d love to take back. (It’s happened to me, not quite so egregiously, but still…) I’m betting that’s the cause of the “sour hops” comment and likely one or two others.
Also, the way I watched and understood it, he wasn’t saying that he personally likes Bud, but that Anchor gave respect to mainstream lager while presenting something different.
I guess now I’m the one being more jaded.
It would be nice if they actually had a guest on who really knew what they were talking about. “Just enough knowledge to be dangerous” seems to be standard for these kinds of things.
I have a real tough time getting worked up about this one either. If I were a novice beer drinker I think I’d go out and buy some of the Allagash White and Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout and have the Grand Cru with company or something. I liked how Harry Smith was jovial and was having fun with it.
I agree, though, that repurposing the list to 50 beers to try before you die was worth your ire. But that’s more Rappaport’s duty to correct Harry. The lemon wedge on the glass also annoyed me. The lemon in Boulevard Wheat is a battle I have to fight on a regular basis here in KC and I hate seeing it reinforced on TV.
J don’t let it bother you much. The smugness and dumbing down of the news has been going on a long time at CBS and I stopped watching them a long time ago in the evenings. I never could stomach any of these chatty morning shows – they are as out of touch with reality and accuracy when it comes to serious news as well as getting the details correct with something as simple as beer.
The folks that watch these shows on a regular basis enjoy the mindless banter to fill their otherwise empty morning hours – anything to fill the time before Oprah comes on air. I’ve always been too busy going to work and never had the time for daytime TV.
That’s public relations. You can get exposure — but you don’t have control over the content. If you want control, you need to purchase advertising.
GQ obviously has staffers working on getting exposure for their magazine — and CBS took the pitch. Thing is, the CBS staff is probably loaded up with people who don’t drink a lot of beer — let alone craft beer — so the whole story kind of gets dumbed down in order to reach a mainstream audience. In addition, the “expert” from GQ is probably some kind of generalist who needs to create a story in order to get paid.
I’ve had my company’s products written about from time to time — and although I go out of my way to simplify the reporter’s job — stuff like product names and even my website URL get completely botched. Just all part of the PR process.
I guess I am a beer Pollyana but that wasn’t the worst hyper sped through segment that I have seen come from morning TV. I watched once and listened once and neither time was as bad as you painted.
My suggestion for you is to just mute your TV because railing against a entertainment / quasi news show is like a cop yelling at CSI for being unrealistic.
I think the exposure is fantastic for the beers here, despite the blunders.
I have to agree that the overall segment was terrible, however, and I’m not even going to call myself negative or jaded to say so.
How many other topics do you think they’d cover on the news with such obvious amateurs? It’s friggen CBS (and GQ)! You’d think they’d have access to someone with at little expertise, it is going to be on TV after all.
On top of that they pulled the blunder that always gets to me… “It’s like Bread in a glass, like Guinness”.
GODDAMIT! Don’t put slices of fruit in your beer!!!! If it needs fruit, STAY AWAY FROM IT!