Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Baptist Blasts Beer

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What is it about Baptists in particular that makes them so damned anti-everything, and beer in particular? Much of the rest of the Christian world seems perfectly able to turn the cheek and be tolerant of their fellow man, even if they don’t see the world quite the same way. I know many, many Christians who not only have no issue with the moderate consumption of alcohol, but even partake of it themselves with no concern whatsoever of being damned to hell for all time. Of course, there are so many different strains of Baptist thought that it’s as difficult to generalize what exactly they believe. If they can’t even agree on what to believe, I have a hard time being told what I should think by any one of them.

At monasteries throughout the Middle Ages, monks perfected the art of brewing beer in perfect harmony with their religion. They still do so today in at least the seven official Trappist Monasteries (six in Belgium and one in the Netherlands), along with many more unofficial ones. Some of the best beer in the world is made by these monks. And they’ve been doing so happily for centuries longer than the Baptist Church even existed. Obviously, Baptists can believe anything they wish to, but what I really want them to stop doing is telling everyone else what to think and believe, especially when they need look no further than other Christian groups to see that not everyone agrees that alcohol is the evil they believe it to be.

Case in point is an opinion hit piece by the Reverend Jim Sickmeyer, Pastor of the Worthington Baptist Temple in Minnesota. His letter complaining that ‘God & Beer’ article should not have been printed was published in today’s Worthington Daily Globe. It was sent to me by Tomme Arthur of The Lost Abbey, who takes some of the brunt in Sickmeyer’s opinion piece. Thanks Tomme. Keep an eye on his blog, too, as he’s assured me he’ll also be addressing it there. He’s also sent a letter to the editor in Worthington, too.

While I’m not 100% sure, I believe the article Sickmeyer is objecting to must be Finding God At A Beer Festival by AP Religion Correspondent Eric Gorski. It was picked up and syndicated fairly widely the week after GABF. I wrote about it, as well, because it was a great example of Christianity not taking itself too seriously and having some fun with beer and religion, something Sickmeyer either missed completely or was unable to grasp.

He starts his rant presuming he wasn’t the only one “appalled” by the article and even calls The Lost Abbey a “blasphemous business.” He probably wasn’t the “only” one, but the number is most likely far fewer than he might hope. If you know Tomme Arthur, co-owner and brewmaster of Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey, then you also know he’s a good Catholic, husband and father. He’s not exactly a poster boy for evil. Sickmeyer goes on to cite Bible verses that supposedly “show God’s attitude toward alcohol” and claims he “could go on with many more verses” showing God hates alcohol.

Well, guess what, you could find just as many verses that show support and/or tolerance for drinking in the Bible. That’s the great thing about the Bible, you can find support for virtually any idea. Alcohol is mentioned almost 250 times, and by far its use is most often mentioned as being “accepted as [a] normal part of culture” (58 times). Twenty-seven times it’s “called a blessing from God.” By contrast, only 17 times are warnings offered against abusing it. But even then, the warnings are about abusing it, not abstaining completely. For a full list, check out Daniel Whitfield’s Alcohol and the Bible, which includes a full listing of References to Alcohol in the Bible. Being able to point out one or two that supports Sickmeyer’s narrow view of alcohol is a fool’s game. It proves nothing except his own personal bias and interpretation.

He goes on to cite the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, saying that “over 100,000 deaths occur each year due to alcohol.” That statistic is just plain wrong. In 2006, “there were 13,470 fatalities in crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver.” That’s assuming you even accept that statistic, which I don’t. I don’t want to suggest that we should take drinking and driving lightly or not discourage it, but inflating a statistic by nearly 750% does his cause no favors, and in fact shows he’s not above lying (a violation of the 8th Commandment) to push his agenda. He follows up that false stat with the following. “I’m sure God is not happy about that. Isn’t it amazing how alcohol brings out the hypocrisy in society?” Yes, it is quite amazing, and what’s more amazing is how it shows itself in such unexpected places.

He ends by voicing his appreciation that the newspaper has in the past taken a “fairly unbiased approach” in its religion section, but finding the offending article “over the top” and believes it should never have been published. I can only conclude that by “unbiased,” he means in agreement with his own views. He does say he “welcome[s] hearing from anyone who agrees or disagrees with me for that matter.”

But his conclusion is a little “over the top” for my tastes — and I suspect for Tomme, too — as he calls on Tomme Arthur and the gang from the Lost Abbey to “repent before its too late.” Yeah, I think it’s always a good idea to attack and threaten someone’s immortal soul as a means of trying to win them over to your way of thinking. That’s the very definition of self-righteous: “confident of one’s own righteousness, esp. when smugly moralistic and intolerant of the opinions and behavior of others.” I don’t even think he’s speaking for a majority of Christians, and possibly not even for other Baptists. His church appears to be an independent and not affiliated with any of the several Baptist associations of churches.

Obviously a letter to the editor is merely one man’s opinion, and people should be free to voice their beliefs. But by characterizing it as from his Baptist church and citing Biblical authority and expertise, I think it rises above mere opinion. He’s basically trying to make the case that God himself is against Tomme Arthur, The Lost Abbey and even beer itself, as he presumes to speak for God. That kind of rhetoric is best left in the pulpit, at least in my opinion. But then I respect the separation of church and state. Plus our founding fathers liked a good beer from time to time and saw little contradiction in it. I’m with them.

 

Martin Luther’s Beer

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lutheran
I stumbled upon this interesting write-up of the Beers of Martin Luther on a Lutheran website, Cyberbrethern. The post is based on notes from a talk given at a Men’s Breakfast at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Fayetteville, New York in April of 1997. Keith Villa of Blue Moon Brewing is thanked for “describing how the beers of Martin Luther’s era would have looked and tasted.”

martin-luther

The article discusses German beer in the middle ages, both homebrewed beer and brews made at Abbeys, and then speculates which beer of the time would have been Martin Luther’s favorite. This proved easier than you might imagine.

Frederick Salem, in his Beer, Its History and Its Economic Value as a National Beverage (1880) notes, “Luther’s fondness for beer is well known, and on the evening of that eventful day at Worms, April 18, 1521, the Duke Erich von Braunschweig sent him a pot of Eimbecker (Einbecker) beer, to which he was specially addicted.”

Michael Jackson also mentioned this connection in his New World Guide to Beer, saying “Luther received a gift of Einbeck beer on the occasion of his wedding.”

The article goes on to suggest that Luther preferred homebrew over beer from commercial breweries, finding the latter to be “a curse for Germany.” But in an apparent contradiction, Luther “drank at home.”

One biographer notes, “The German prophet became a patriarch, and the living room was dominated by his presence. He enjoyed his beer and had a great mug with three rings on it, one ‘the Ten Commandments’, the next ‘the Creed’ and third ‘the Lord’s Prayer’. He boasted that he could encompass all three with ease.”

But he was also a champion for moderation, and in sermon he gave in 1539, preached the following:

“It is possible to tolerate a little elevation, when a man takes a drink or two too much after working hard and when he is feeling low. This must be called a frolic. But to sit day and night, pouring it in and pouring it out again, is piggish… all food is a matter of freedom, even a modest drink for one’s pleasure. If you do not wish to conduct yourself this way, if you are going to go beyond this and be a born pig and guzzle beer and wine, then, if this cannot be stopped by the rulers, you must know that you cannot be saved. For God will not admit such piggish drinkers into the kingdom of heaven [cf. Gal. 5:19-21]… If you are tired and downhearted, take a drink; but this does not mean being a pig and doing nothing but gorging and swilling… You should be moderate and sober; this means that we should not be drunken, though we may be exhilarated.”

luther-bier

There is at least one Luther-Bier, a German-style pilsner brewed by Einsiedler Brauhaus. I’m not sure what that adds to the story, but I found in interesting all the same. As far as I can tell, it was a special release and there’s even a separate website for Luther-Bier, but there’s almost no additional information there. But you can see the special box it comes in an etched mug at a Wittenberg website.

And I found this great quote on another church’s website:

“We old folks have to find our cushions and pillows in our tankards. Strong beer is the milk of the old.”

     — Martin Luther

Beer & Christianity

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christmas
It’s Christmas Eve and I’m sitting at my in-laws drinking a Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. The kids are asleep, the presents are wrapped and we’ve finished the traditional meal of Chinese take-out (don’t ask). The rest of my wife’s family (she has four siblings) is watching television and finishing their own wrapping, kibitzing in the way brothers and sisters do. I can hear their conversations waft into the front room with all the presents snuggled under the tree — which is where I’m sitting alone — along with the Christmas music on my iPod playing in the kitchen. Christmas is always a time of reflection for me. While I’m grateful that my in-laws have welcomed me so openly into their family, I still can’t help but feel a little sad at this time of the year. My own parents and grandparents are long gone as are all but a handful of uncles, aunts and cousins who remain far away in Pennsylvania.

A couple of days ago, a press release caught my attention from ChristiaNet, which purports to be the “world’s largest Christian portal.” They released a poll taken on the website in which an almost two-thirds majority declared that beer is bad and that overall “drinking beer, wine, liquor, or alcoholic beverages of any kind is wrong.” Naturally the headline only mentioned beer, stating that “Drinking Beer Is Wrong According To ChristiaNet Poll.” This has been rolling around in my head for the last two days and since ChristaNet [Link now dead] has seen fit to throw beer drinkers under the bus at Christmastime, I felt it appropriate to stand up for beer during the same time. So lest you think I’m being sacrilegious, remember that the press release was published three days before Christmas.

So let’s take a look at this issue. ChristiaNet, who I was previously unfamiliar with, in the press release claims they get “twelve million monthly page loads, receive around one million visitors per month and have 400,000 email subscribers who have access to an online shopping mall, job bank, Biblical and life application resources, free ecards, Christian blogs and friendship communities.” Out of those million monthly only 339 responded to the poll that is the subject of their press release. Of those few motivated to take the poll, 192 apparently believe “it isn’t appropriate behavior” for Christians to drink beer, when they answered the question “should Christians drink beer?” So of the approximately 2.1 billion Christians worldwide, less than 200 have a problem with people drinking beer. Eighty were okay with it and another 62 were undecided. And those staggeringly ridiculous statistics warranted a press release that was picked up by news organizations? What exactly was the point of the press release? If you can figure it out, please let me know because I’m stumped. Jesus obviously drank something alcoholic at the last supper, so if He could have a glass, why not the rest of the faithful?

I guess wine during communion is apparently different. I realize Catholics who believe in transubstantiation think the wine is actually the blood of Christ so perhaps that doesn’t count. But Protestants don’t accept transubstantiation so the wine is merely symbolic and therefore just wine. What makes that acceptable but beer is inappropriate? Especially when you consider that it may well have been a mis-translation that Jesus turned water into beer instead of wine. If the same mis-translation continued through the last supper, perhaps Christians today would wash down the body of Christ with beer instead of red wine.

Is it the amount? According to the press release, many respondents made “the distinction that it should be done in moderation and not to get drunk” and also found it “acceptable unless abused or causes someone else to sin.” The release also mused that “[w]hile an occasional drink might have some health benefits, too much can cause health problems. The risk of becoming addicted to it should be considered by those who are tempted.” But that’s true of anything. Too much of almost anything can be bad for you. Certainly extremism of any stripe leads to much unpleasantness. But the stereotypical frat boy mentality of drink ’till you puke is not seriously advocated by any organization that I know of, so who are they targeting. Is there any group — pro or con — that doesn’t think drinking in moderation is the way to go? So again I have to ask — rhetorically at least — why ChristiaNet is going out of their way to paint a picture in which a majority of Christians are against drinking beer? Virtually all of the Christians I know love the stuff and have no problem whatsoever with it.

Many neo-prohibitionist groups seem to have strong ties to extremist religious groups, so is ChristiaNet among them and that what’s going on here? Sadly, I have only questions and no answers. But it creeps me out more than a little to see the holiday of Christmas being used as a time to call into question whether a third of the world’s population has a problem with my beverage of choice. And worse still, using such flimsy statistics as support for their agenda, whatever it truly turns out to be.

But tomorrow (later today, really) my kids — Porter and Alice — will wake me way too early, excited to see what Santa brought them. I’ll have on my traditional Celebration Ale t-shirt I’ve worn every Christmas morning for over ten years. This is Porter’s fifth Christmas and the first one where he’s truly excited about it and is learning the traditions that define us as a nation. He delighted in picking out the perfect tree, stringing the lights, and hanging the ornaments. He insisted we hang a wreath on the front door of our new house. For the last month, one of the books we’ve been reading at bedtime is Are You Grumpy, Santa? and as a result we had to bake chocolate chip cookies to leave out for Santa. When his grandmother said we only had sugar cookies he informed her that they would make Santa grumpy. Needless to say, there were freshly baked chocolate chip cookies left out for Santa’s butt next to the tree. I say “were” because my sister-in-law and I just ate them — leaving a few crumbs behind on the plate — to keep the illusion alive. After we open the presents there will be a feast and I’ll have a few different holiday beers. And I’ll try to figure out why on one of my favorite days of the year, drinking a beer is so wrong. Why do I feel like my ability to enjoy a good beer is constantly under attack? Why can’t we all just say Merry Christmas, share a yuletide brew and get along? I’ll even start the ball rolling.

Happy Holidays, Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men (and Women). Beery Christmas everyone.