Beer Culture

An amiable ramble

So what is beer culture, I kept asking myself, having blithely parroted the phrase for some years that I needed to work it out for myself.

So here goes in a nutshell: Beer culture is about the customs that surround the making and drinking of beer, the institutions in which it is drunk, the rules and rituals that surround it, the people who both make and drink it and how they identify themselves. It is about the places where it is made and drunk, the landscape that shapes it, the factors that influence it and how it is transmitted through the world.

That was not enough, so I took a deep breath and starting writing: beer culture is about the people who drink and make beer, the places in which it is made and drunk, the surroundings, the decor and the mood of pubs and bars that are shaped by both the people who visit and the beers that they drink.

It is about the history of the breweries, the beers, the trends of drinking, the ebb and flow of consumption, the histories of the pubs and bars in which beer is drunk, whether the establishments are as old as the hills in whose shadows they stand or opened up in a former shop last year, or closed and revived and brought back from the dead.

It is about the landscapes of beer and its adjoining breweries, whether we think of a railway arch in a revitalised part of a growing city, or a farmhouse on a lonely stretch of Flemish countryside, or a village inn and its brewery in rural Franconia, or a factory unit that has so little romance that you wouldn’t realise that award-winning beer was made there unless you went inside. In you go.

It is about the music played, the words written and regurgitated, the songs sung and the laughter that accompanies the glasses of beer being drunk in a bar in Milan (and let us not forget the Morris Men); it is about the clothes that people wear, at Oktoberfest or at British beer festivals, or The Knights of the Brewers Mash Staff parading through the Grande Place in Brussels, with their robes and priest-like hats; it is about the images, the artwork, the inn-signs, the bottle and can labels, the adverts, the social media, the artwork that often can be bought as a print and stuck up on the wall.

It is about walking the streets, pushing open the door of a favourite bar or pub and waiting to be served, anticipation growing within as you imagine the crispness of the beer you will be ordering, the cold and refreshing play of sensation on the tongue, the wet whisper of hedonism, the jokes told and the stories erred on the right side of your playful nature.

It is about the taste, the slight intoxication and the occasional toxicity when we go too far, it is about the amusement that beer can bring, the nostalgia and memories it can evoke, the people with whom we share memories and stories and the glory to come. The brown tide, the froth of the moment and the glimpse of bubbles and the prickle of carbonation; the dance and the sparkle on the tongue, the gush of thought that comes forth, as if Neptune were stepping ashore. The bitterness, the sweetness, the caught on the hop moment, the crisp, refreshing contact with the palate, the signals sent to the brain that what you are drinking is personified enjoyment. The golden sun that shines in the glass, the fruits of your labour emerging from the glass, the sweep of fruitiness on the tongue, alongside the braced bitterness with a cereal-like dryness that is an enabler of enjoyment.

It is about the rattling bus snaking through the countryside with a pub at the end of the journey, the train skirting the wave battered coast with a pub at the next station, or maybe two or three, the walk through the rain, the nature of the game; under the hill all of us go at the final stage of our life but beer can be used to celebrate that passing, reconnect your memory with a swig and another swig, raise a full glass to the memory of dear old matey they all chorused, may he be never forgotten, but as soon as the rain stopped they walked out of the pub never to think of their dead friend ever again, for they were alive and he wasn’t.

The finality of the empty glass, you’ve had enough dearie, time to go home, haven’t you lot got homes to go to; the trade routes and the links between varieties of beer, the routes that link the European continent and cross the Channel to connect with that pugnacious island where some still bang their dimpled pint glass on the table and bellow ale forever, the traces on the map that confound the temperate, the links between regions and the question to be asked, why did this particular beer style come to be in this region, why did Pilsner become a thing in Bohemia, while a darker cold-fermented kind of beer ruled the roost over the border in Bavaria; what were the tastes of the Munich locals who decided in the 1890s that they too wanted a golden lager beer. Why did ale become hailed as the drink of champions in the wet and windy islands of Britain, and how come dark beer kept its handholds on people’s palates throughout the continent; why do some people like this kind of beer and others that kind, how are our palates different, what is the soul of beer and brewing beyond that of making money and reliving a heroic imagined past; why do you drink beer, is it because everyone else does and you want to join the crowd or did, after a time, a growing appreciation of the drink come to govern your instincts?

One chooses to drink immoderately or moderately, the taste of the beer you pick tickles the palate, pleases the palate, possesses the palate with a pleasure that is on a par with the dishes you enjoy and the clothes you wear, and when you choose a beer and wed yourself to it with the clamp of a limpet on a seaside rock, it becomes one of the pleasures with which you define yourself, along with the style of clothes, the books you read, the music you enjoy, the sports you watch, the friends you have, the family you miss, the words you write in journals and diaries, online in documents, Google or otherwise, the ghosts that inhabit your waking thoughts, the people you knew who passed on by, as well as the dogs and the cats and the odd rabbit in its hutch, the mainline to heaven that overindulgence can bring, with the association of hell next morning, then you are back in the pub before you knew where you are, a pint of please, a pint of the usual, and before long the voice at the back of the mind that says it is time to go home now, time to go home, good night all.