Today is our fifth Beer Blogging Friday “Session” and the topic is decidedly cerebral. Ron and Al, who run Hop Talk have chosen a topic near and dear to their hearts: atmosphere. Ron at Hop Talk wrote about atmosphere when they first started their blog almost a year ago. In that first atmospheric post, he wrote: “It might be a place, it might be a time, and it might be the company you are with; but, there’s no two ways about it, a beer will taste better if enjoyed in the right atmosphere.”

Below that is the Mesosphere, which is where most of the meters that shower the Earth burn up in the atmosphere. They’re just too hot to drink with, despite there being a French beer called Meteor. As we close in on Earth, we next descend into the Stratosphere, which is where what’s left of the ozone layer resides. It’s also where we send weather balloons to track the patterns in the atmosphere used by meteorologists to incorrectly predict the weather so maddeningly often. Just a little farther along we reach the final layer, known as the Troposphere. This where the airplanes fly, at its thickest a mere 23,000 feet (4 1/3 mi.) at the poles and 60,000 feet (10 1/2 mi.) at the equator. We sit at the very bottom of this airy fishbowl, on our barstools, talking about the weather and quenching out thirst with another beer. That’s our own atmosphere. Of course, it doesn’t answer the question of our favorite drinking atmosphere.

So let’s break the question down:

1. Where
2. When
3. With Whom
4. Why

1. Where

Where is probably the first aspect you think of when the question of atmosphere is posed. Location, location, location. The other W’s are merely window dressing to place and merely modify your experience of that place whether temporally, by its fellowship or the reason you’re there in the first place. So without question “where” is what atmosphere is all about. It’s the hokey pokey. Everything else that may or may not enhance it doesn’t stand a chance unless you’ve chosen the right place to begin with. So where are the best places? That’s undoubtedly a personal decision, but there is, I think, some universal criteria that we’d all more or less agree with.
 

• Comfort: In my opinion, the best places are the ones where I feel the most comfortable, however you define that. I don’t necessarily mean safe, some of my favorite places are often described as dive bars. But you have to feel in place, not out of it. Often, that requires other people, but not always. There are plenty places of solitude that would qualify for me.

 

• Beauty: It’s hard to admit, but looks do matter. Who wouldn’t prefer the stunning vista of mountains or a lake to a brick wall? There’s something universally calming about the idylls of nature. Why fight it?

 

• The Source: It’s hard to imagine a better place than the source of something as the best place to enjoy it. I can’t imagine the unfiltered Radeberger Zwickel tastes sweeter outside of its native Dresden. Isn’t that why barrel tasting is so wonderful? You just can’t get closer to the source than that. I’m sure that’s why I like drinking in breweries so much.

2. The Rest

To me, when is less about time than season. Even here in California, where the seasons don’t make themselves individually known as forcefully as more temperate climates, there is a rhythm to the year. Some of it is imposed artificially by the calendar but much of it is still managed by nature herself. The time of year often makes the decision of a beer or range of beers for you. The blonde ale I’m enjoying right now is ideal for the warmth of this July day. If it were cooler, I’d be craving something heartier.

The people you drink with to my mind does more to change the experience than any other single factor, except for place. Simpatico drinking buddies are worth their weight in gold. They take a good situation — great place, great beer — and turn it into an experience worth remembering. Oftentimes, you can’t even remember what was discussed, just that it was an enjoyable experience. And in the end, that’s really all that matters.

And that brings us to why, which our hosts Ron and Al regard as being of the utmost importance. I’m not sure I place as much stock in the why as they do, though it’s undoubtedly important. I think, more often than not, the why of what makes a particular atmosphere comes out of the other factors, is in effect created by the place, the beer, the camaraderie, etcetera. It’s the synergy of all of the other factors coming together in such a way as makes them all fit together. I’m sure you can create those conditions artificially, but I’m willing to bet that it’s the ones that come together of their own accord that are the best. You can choose a great place. You can order a great beer. You can invite terrific friends to join you. But that’s still no guarantee of a great time. Oh, I’ll grant you it’s a good start and will probably work more often than not. Still, you could also go to the same place with the same people and drink the same beer night after night and not recreate a magical evening. It’s that indefinable synergy that provide the final ingredient and makes a pleasant evening into a truly memorable one.

I imagine it’s like seeing color in a black and white world. How would you describe red or blue or yellow to someone who’s never seen color? And once you’ve seen the world in all it’s rich hues, the black and white world seems all gray and lifeless by comparison. It’s such a rich experience that you can’t help but want other people to see it, too. It’s too magnificent to keep it to yourself. It’s frankly a little frustrating when so many people seem to say, “nah, I like my world in black and white, thank you very much” because you know how much they’re missing. Sometimes I feel a little sorry for them, even though I know how patronizing and condescending that sounds. I see people I’ve known for years, still drinking industrial light lagers without a moment’s pause, and I just shake my head thinking of all of life’s pleasures they’re denying themselves. Because how could someone who thinks all beer is the same possibly even consider a question like atmosphere? It’s all the same, right? So what can it matter? I always imagine such people — trying to give them the benefit of the doubt — just feel they have more important things to think about. Truthfully, that never actually seems to be the case, and in fact many just seem to be sleepwalking through life not giving too much thought to any of the choices they make, beer or otherwise. If that really is the case, how many simple pleasures that you and I take for granted do they miss over and over again? If nothing else, loving beer is about enjoying life to the fullest, because it never stops with the beer. I guess beer is a gateway pleasure, because it leads to single malt scotch, cider, pairing with food, purposeful travel, fantastic cheese, port, cooking, and all manner of decadence that leads to a richer, fuller life. It also leads to an intuitive understanding that the very idea of “atmosphere” is important to the true enjoyment of life. That there is a healthy percentage of the world that can’t see that is very sad, indeed. Maybe that’s why there’s so much misery in the world today. Perhaps better beer really could save the world. Okay, I’ve changed my mind again. My favorite place to have a beer is that future world where everybody drinks good beer, war is an unknown concept and everybody understands that a life half-lived is a life wasted.

Hey, I can dream, can’t I? I’ll hold out until everybody understands the following poem, Lines on Ale (1848), by Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849):

Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain.
Quaintest thoughts, queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away.
What care I how time advances;
I am drinking ale today.

Amen, brother.