Comments on: On the concept of “Gateway Beer”

By: Andrea Turco

Andrea Turco — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:59:41 +0000

Hi 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

By: Kevin Burns

Kevin Burns — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 17:56:52 +0000

I 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.

By: Laurent Mousson

Laurent Mousson — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:09:15 +0000

Yes, 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.

By: Andrea Turco

Andrea Turco — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:23:44 +0000

@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.

By: Laurent Mousson

Laurent Mousson — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:00:11 +0000

Indeed, 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…