For the second time in less than a year, the lazy producers at the Today Show had a segment about beer hosted by someone from Food & Wine magazine. This time it was Gail Simmons, who’s perhaps better known as a judge on the Bravo television show Top Chef. I’ve looked over her biography and I can’t for the life of me find any mention of beer whatsoever.
The advice she gives isn’t terrible, though it’s pretty basic to the point where she couldn’t really go too far off the rails. Most of the beers are fairly pedestrian, but they most likely have to be available for a national audience. It was nice at least to see Lagunitas IPA and Victory Prima Pils highlighted. Although I can’t for the life me understand why they put the IPA in a pilsner glass!?!
I know most people’s take on this is that we should be glad beer is getting any positive attention — and I am — but I’m also enough of a curmudgeon to want it to be on our terms. I know I keep hammering this point, but it just doesn’t seem that unreasonable to want wine experts to talk about wine, food experts to talk about food and plumbing experts to talk about plumbing. For almost any expertise you could name, that’s the way it’s done and most people would agree that makes sense. But when it comes to beer, mass media seems to believe almost anyone can be an instant expert on beer for no better reason than a familiarity with another alcoholic beverage or food more generally. And that’s likely because of their own ignorance, believing that beer is only the commodity it’s portrayed as by the big beer company’s advertising and marketing. That, plus being too lazy to take the time to learn anything different. But for fuck’s sake, there are plenty of beer magazines around these days. Surely they must have run across one of them. Perhaps they’ve heard of Google? A quick search would reveal hundreds, if not thousands, of people who know more about beer and food pairing than Gail Simmons.
Evidence of their ignorance comes out loud and clear when segment host Lester Holt tells Simmons the following. “Thanks for legitimizing beer. I’m one of those beer drinkers that feels funny ordering a beer in a nice restaurant instead of wine sometimes.” First of all, and no offense to Simmons, but she’s done nothing, absolutely nothing, to “legitimize” beer. That work has been done by thousands of dedicated craft brewers, beer writers and aficionados over thirty years of hard, patient work. Her magazine is now addressing craft beer because of the groundwork laid by all those people; she’s reacting to the market, not leading it. That Holt offhandedly gives her “credit” for so many other people’s hard work is deeply offensive and just plain pisses me off.
Secondly, why on Earth would anyone “feel funny” ordering what they want with a meal? How sad that anyone would feel they “must” order wine with any meal in a restaurant. When he made that statement, you could almost hear the collective marketing world patting themselves on the back. When you convince people that wine is the only thing to order in a fine restaurant to the point where they “feel funny” doing anything different, that’s a great victory for advertising. But when any industry persuades society to believe what they want them to wholesale and unquestioning, that can be deeply damaging to the world as a whole. Life becomes skewed, and I would argue that’s our world today. A century of advertising has made us “feel” certain things about brands, specific companies and their products. You have to marvel at the success of it all when you see millions of people voluntarily wear clothing with corporate logos on them, essentially paying for the privilege of advertising for them. That no one thinks twice about it boggles the mind.
With wine, this manifests itself in the way newspapers and other media have “wine sections” or “wine and food sections” that cover all beverages. Even the Today Show’s website has a Food & Wine section. Can somebody explain to my why it can’t be Food & Drink or Food & Beverage? Why is it always exclusive and not inclusive? Of course, like Food & Wine magazine, they all do occasionally include articles about beer, spirits and even coffee, so why not call it by a name that reflects that? Perhaps they’d cover beer more often if wine wasn’t in the title? I’d at least feel better if the Today Show’s “expert” came from, if not a beer magazine, at least a Food & Drinks magazine. That might go a long way to “legitimize beer” and their coverage of it.
Beer experts on TV get no respect, and in at least one instance that still has me chapped, get less than none. I’m referring to Michael Jackson’s appearance on Conan O’Brien’s late night just a few years ago. Jackson hadn’t quite yet gone public with his medical condition (Parkinson’s), and so came across as a bit drunk, and O’Brien took advantage of it. It was not a great moment for presenting quality beer on the boob toob. Garett Oliver made at least one appearance on Martha “I’m In Control! ME!” Stewart’s show, pretty much relegated to the background, even when he was allowed to talk.
And so it goes. I was once told that the world of wine is a fortress, and so wine people – including writers – get the respect. Never mind that we have no shortage of educated beer people who would do just fine presenting on TV. There’s no room on-camera for them. Yet.
First of all, i agree with you all the way..
but.. i think he probably meant…
“Thanks for legitimizing beer.” By her coming down to discuss beer?
I’m just guessing, especially if you’ve searched and she doesn’t seem to have any “beer” history.
And the Pilsner glass? I’m guessing they either had no clue or just wanted a fancy glass…
Many parts did make me cringe, but in some ways i am grateful for any somewhat positive beer promotion….
dave
I think Garrett was busy that day – making beer
Seriously. How bout Papazian, maybe Koch, or Maier!? Megan from Beer Northwest I’m sure would love to be on TV. Google Sam Calagione. That guy could host the effing a morning talk show. But no, there’s no way he could be on the Today Show because, oh, he’s one of those people actually knows what the fuck he’s talking about.
It’s apalling to see the blatant disregard for the beer community. And yeah Dave, positive press is press done right, not this kind of misinformation and ignorance. I understand the masses are still trying to grasp the fact that beer is a craft industry that is starting to rival wine, but jesus man, if you’re going to do something, do it right. Who cares if Food and Wine Joe lives a block from the studio, and don’t give me calm and relaxed and pleasant guest and editor this and respected that, there are plenty of super personanable beer nerds, and probably plenty in NY. Ever heard of Ommegang!?? Could you imagine saying to your wife “oh well let’s just have our dentist deliver the baby, he’s a doctor.” Amatuers dude.
*high five*
I’m so ready to go out and a punch a wine drinker!
I think the craft beer forefathers deserve as much respect, credit, return on their work as they can get…
But also, I’m fine wt all the douche bags on TV staying out of the craft beer world.
They can keep beer in their superbowl/frat-daddy pigeon hole and leave the good stuff to us.
I can completely empathise with Jay’s comments, because it can be just as bad on this side of the pond. Although there are some programmes like Market Kitchen (which I appear on periodically) that do get beer experts to talk about beer what drives me up the wall is programmes like Saturday Kitchen which have chefs like Mark Hix creating fabulous twists on really good English food, cooking with beer and then they insist on pairing it with a wine!
Whilst I applaud the attempts to get beer & food matching on TV the presentation was appalling.
If you take into account the presenter’s (probably well-meaning) comment about drinking beer in restaurants how exactly did those sodding great tankards, made ever worse by their juxtaposition with the elegant wine glass, encourage people to drink more beer with food and in restaurants exactly?
And, frankly, they seriously needed to cut down the amount of beer & food pairings, there was very little useable information for the consumer outside of that brand goes with that food, and that one goes with that.
The issue with providing that sort of completely prescriptive information to people is that if they can’t find ‘that brand’ then they will default back to their regular commodity choice because you haven’t said something like: “Wheat beer goes really well with sushi & sashimi – here’s one which is called Hoegaarden from Belgium but we’ve got a lot of other home-grown wheat beers like Brooklyn Weisse or Sierra Nevada Kellerweisse that go equally well.” That way you empower people to go off and find options that could be available to them more widely and also encourage them to drink their home-grown beers too.
And are people seriously still stuck in the rut of white with ‘light foods’ and red with ‘dark foods’?!
Anyway, Jay, we’ve got a long way to go before the craft movement cracks the strangle hold of wine but these kind of baby steps can sometimes help the category but they do tend to hinder our profession – it’s a Catch .22
Just another example of why mainstream media is dying a death of a thousand cuts. Their programming is geared toward the lowest-common denominator.
Poor Lester, needing approval from the masses to feel comfortable having dinner. Its OK Lester, some of us even use utensils now!
I agree that we should have “true” beer professionals on TV talking about beer in these beer segments. However, you may want to look at the benefits of having a Gail Simmons introduce these beers to the public. First off, this is a mainstream media show and caters to the mainsteam consumer in the US. Having someone who the mainstream consumer is not only familar with but also is comfortable with will do a lot to get that consumer to perhaps make a jump from their typical beverage to a craft beverage. Additionally, this show is not catering to the “beer geek” and thus not looking to encourage the consumer within this 2 min segment to try an obscure imperial stout.
As someone who sells craft beer for a living, any marketing help from the mainstream media is a benefit and to get it to appeal to the mainstream consumer…and create that…”hmmm…maybe I should try a craft beer @ dinner” thought is exactly what needs to be done. It takes a lot to get people to try something new.
I don’t remember seeing Robert Mondavi or any “wine expert” on Today to talk about wine ever. She (Gail) may not have been the best choice and most knowledgeable person to do beer pairings but I can say that more people have probably heard of her than Oliver and Papazian. I think eventually those are the go to guys…but their time is still coming. Also, I believe I did see Sam Calagione on Today a few months ago doing one of these segments. So there is still hope that we can educate the masses !
Wow,
Imagine that ! ! ! Gail Simmons described Hoeegaarden as a
“Belgian Style” beer! ! !
So, does that mean that, say, Rogue Shakespeare Stout is an “American Style Stout?” I agree, let the beer people that know beer, write and talk about beer. Let the wine people talk about what they know.