Jan
14
'10On the concept of “Gateway Beer”
Before the recent holidays, my attention was caught by an interesting article published on blogs Top Fermented, in which the author reflects on the concept of Gateway Beer. This term refers to an ideal beer, able to take a drinker through the boundary line between the world of industrial lager and the more exciting craft beer one. According to this theory, a particular beer would mark the experience of every beer lover: after years of drinking only industrial beer, we would suddenly come across an unusual production, which would have opened the doors of the craft beer world. It’s a common path to almost all the beer lovers, but the question is: is there really a Gateway Beer?
Surely there has been a beer that lead us on the path towards quality and taste, but the concept under consideration is a bit more complex. For “gateway beer” the author means in fact a product that is not “completely craft”, but that still differs from the usual commercial lager, showing which is the right way to go. A quite fitting example is that of Guinness, certainly an industrial beer, but so peculiar that people who love it may in future become consumers of craft beers. No wonder that for many shrewd geeks Guinness remains a must.
Top Fermented cites different examples, including Blue Moon and Samuel Adams Boston Lager. The former is a multinational brand (Molson Coors), designed precisely to capture a more demanding niche among commercial beers consumers. Samuel Adams is a trademark of Boston Beer Company and has long lost its status of microbrewery, but still boasts a kind of craft soul. Both are products with very peculiar characteristics, and for this reason can be called “Gateway Beer”.
But back to the original question, does this “shift beer” really exist? Or rather, we really need to make an “intermediate” shift before moving permanently from industrial lager to craft beers? According to the author of the article the answer is no, and I can’t but agree. One of my first craft beers was one Andechs Doppelbock, which opened the doors of this fantastic world to me. The dark Andechs can’t be certainly considered a “Gateway Beer”, since it is light years away from any industrial beer. Yet a pint of dark Andechs was enough to mark forever my experience as a beer consumer.
Obviously mine is not an isolated case. There are people who came close to this world for the first time tasting a very bitter IPA or a Belgian Tripel, or even a Lambic. Get in contact with craft beers does not require any kind of preparation: if you are predisposed to this kind of product (for personal tastes and cultural reasons) then sooner or later you will appreciate them, without the need of any intermediate “help”.
This is my thought, what do you think? Did you passed directly to craft beers too or have previously done a little practice with a few “shift beer”?
1 January 15, 2010 at 2:00 PM Laurent MoussonIndeed, such gateway beers are highly overstated by the industry and some beer consumers.
The importance, at least to such beer buffs as us, of one or several epiphanies, those moments when a beer takes us unawares and shakes our taste reference frame, is vital. But the first of those usually is linked to a person, an event or other circumstances that led us out of our way…
Your average supermarket beer buyer will possibly go out of his way for such gateway beers, but he’ll very probably stay there and won’t go any further unless someone, an event opr other circumstances take him out of his way to one of those formative encounters…
2 January 15, 2010 at 3:23 PM Andrea Turco@Laurent
Thank you for your comment! In your opinion, these “critical moments” happen in a accidental way or following a linear event? This is my experience: one day my brother told me “Ehy, why don’t you try that pub? It serves ‘good beer’”… No strange encounters, no particular events. All started from there, and from an Andechs Doppelbock, of course.
3 January 15, 2010 at 5:09 PM Laurent MoussonYes, I believe it’s often largely accidental.
I know guys who’ve turned into beer geeks on a trip to what was then Czechoslovakia, and very few who’ve been “ambushed” by a beer geek friend (although I’ve caused quite a few of those myself)…
In my case, the main epiphany was way back in October 1990, during a language course in Bristol, realising that, whilst I did like the Courage Best Bitter served at the pub next to the school, I much preferred the Smiles Best Bitter they also served, as it had that little something more… Two weeks later I noticed that the Smiles micro-brewery was just four or five houses down the street from the pub…
Yet three years before that, I’d realised, in England too, that although I hated swiss mass-market lager, I quite liked the bitters and brown ales sold in British pubs, but in a non-discerning way, as I liked Newcastle Brown a lot (granted, I was only 17 or so at the time – yes, I once was an underage drinker in British pubs, yikes ! -and hadn’t even grown a beard yet !)…
That means I’ve been through a “gateway beers” phase and could have stayed at that level, had it not been for that later watershed moment in Bristol.
4 January 16, 2010 at 6:56 PM Kevin BurnsI think that these “critical moments” are 60-40 in favor of a linear event. In New York craft beer is growing quickly from a beer geek bringing a friend to a craft beer or saying “Hey, Try This” at a party.
5 January 16, 2010 at 10:59 PM Andrea TurcoHi Kevin, thank you for your comment. I agree with you, as the craft beer grows, the ratio between accidental events and linear events shifts towards the latter