What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiates 1:9)
There is nothing like the Bible to act as a wet blanket on the fire of life. Why don't you just kick my dog and piss in my Wheaties? By the way, did you know that John Henry Kellogg was a doctor and ran the Battle Creek Sanitarium. As a Victorian-era doctor, he believed in wack-a-doodle ideas such as liver secretions affecting the way we act and stuck a combination of yogurt and water up his patients' bums for daily enemas. He also created Corn Flakes because the bland taste was suppose to curb sexual libido. Kooks. So, I decided to go to a local bottle shop. Peach Gose. Cucumber Sours. Chocolate Stouts. 7 hopped IPAs. What do you have to say about that Johnny Bible?
Take a look at where you buy your brew. I'm willing to bet there is more than Budweiser and Miller there. How could that be? After the prohibition of alcohol, major breweries that survived the purged slurped up local and regional breweries. After consolidation, those larger breweries developed ways to maintain continuity of their product's taste by developing extracts from one source. They could recreate that same flavor anywhere on God's green earth. I remember asking an Irish guy while watching a Liverpool game, why drink a Budweiser in a pub? There were plenty of other beers. His response, "no matter where you go, you're going to get the same thing." That's something I can, at least, understand. I was recently burned when I got a double IPA from a 7-Eleven. Normally, that's not a place to buy craft beer - but I played the odds. It tasted like a pinecone that came out of a skunk's ass.
Marketing has changed too. In the 1950s, advertisement showed wives burning dinner but at least there was a Schlitz for her man after a hard day's work. Feminism put a kibosh on that sort of advertisement, but in the 1980s, Spuds MacKenzie, a bull terrier, was flanked by gorgeous women and Bud Light. Now, with the craft beer revolution, you see a more artisan approach. Some of it is laughable, because a brewery like Blue Moon who had a great hefeweizen - served with an orange. They were bought out by the Coors-Molson group and who know how that is actually made. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms have changed the scape of beer marketing. We have a closer look of the bearded fellows at the brewery stirring the wort and other pictures of the product. Personally, I'm still trying to understand the essence of that approach. How it motivates the consumer to buy their product. I think it is suppose to be that we're all suppose to be artists. We're all searching for something new so we can show people that we have our fingers on the pulse of something. Much of my Twitter feed, @redefiningform, I speculate on moves that happen within soccer. Recently, Frank de Boer was released from his post at Inter Milan and I speculated that he'd go to Sunderland in the Premier League. Whether that happens or not, who knows?
We've come a long way since apes discovered eating fruit that has fallen from the tree ferments if you leave it there and you can get drunk. We've evolved from Babylonian and Egyptian beers. Hell, if you were to have a beer that was brewed by the Founding Fathers of America, it would taste like someone had just begun home brewing and they didn't wash out the gear and it tastes like Band-Aids. Despite what the Bible says, I believe that as long as science and ingredients provide, that we can have unlimited potential. I believe that with yeast strains, hop strains and malts - we can have plenty of brand new beers as longs as brewers push the boundaries of what's possible.
Next week, I'll delve into the next part of the phrase: something borrowed. What is the things what we borrow from other brewers? Other bloggers? Other drinkers? If you are a fan, I would appreciate feedback. What is something that we all share when it comes to drinking. Please tweet me at @Drunkproduction on Twitter or email me adrunkenproduction@gmail.com.
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