Oliver’s lore

For those who follow beer with more than a pleasingly simple, pub-based interest, often the people behind the product are as – if not more – interesting than the beer itself. Brewing is about experimentation, skill, precision, enjoyment and numerous other things – and once you start appreciating the stories behind the process, those people responsible for creating the beer pull into focus all the more. Garrett Oliver is just such a person – brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery, esteemed author, competition judge and all-round authority on beer. As he gave the keynote speech at the recent European Beer Bloggers’ Conference, I thought some of his choicest quotes more than merited repeating here. Thanks to Zephyr Adventures for organising the Conference, and Garrett for flying across the Atlantic to partake…

“I moved to London and discovered beer. [You’d think…] “I’m not sure I like that, I’ll have another and find out!” In 1984 I went back to America, and there was nothing. We bought Budweiser when we had money, because at least it tasted like water. The other stuff tasted much worse. How do we go from a country like that to where we are now?”

“At Brooklyn, we invented collaborations – we were the first to do it, with Brakspear at Henley on Thames, in 1997. That just doesn’t happen elsewhere, that spirit. You don’t see Coke collaborating with Pepsi!”

“Beer ratings. Why would I want to know a rating of one of my beers from the public? I find it fascinating – some people want brewers to be artists and listen to you at the same time. You know what one of the definitions of an artist is? That they won’t listen to you. One brewer I knew, just starting off, had comments that his beers were subtle and balanced. I asked him ‘Why are you are looking at the ratings [in the first place]? Either 1. You hope for flattery, or 2. You’re looking for someone saying bad things [about your beer]. But will you then change it? If you would, go home and become a banker. If not, then why are you reading the ratings? Because you’re hoping for flattery. I love flattery, I mean, it works on me. But could you imagine if Bob Dylan had focus-grouped his albums? How crushed would you feel?”

“Even though we are doing great, the wine people own the general media; every major newspaper has a wine column. Would you ever see an acidity number, a tannin number, on the side of a bottle of wine? These are real numbers, and they would never put them on the bottle. Why? They don’t sound delicious. You need to call brewers out on this, if we’re talking in an alien language. IBU’s sound disgusting. Watch people tune out when they are mentioned. Brewers have to turn off that switch too, or they will talk about these things to normal people.”

“I still don’t know what craft beer means here [in the UK]. If a family owned brewery starts using Simcoe, are they craft? For me, the difference is relatively simple: is there a personal vision somewhere in what’s going on? If so, that’s craft brewing. Take Sierra Nevada – they are five times the size of Brooklyn, but have a hugely personal vision. Ken Grossman and his team engineer lots of things themselves. They built a machine that dropped Brett into each individual bottle so it wouldn’t have to be near the brewery. And some people say Sierra Nevada aren’t craft? Fuck you. If the name of your brewmaster is money, you ain’t craft.”

“When someone starts a brewery, they might do something beautiful, and they might not. Take into account whether they mean it. Wherever you are, you should try to encourage people to have, at least for their first, a local beer. The brewer who took a second mortgage on their house. That’s who you need to support. Defend local beer.”

This is the second brewer’s quote post in the series (which it may have become), the other is here – featuring Stuart Cail from Harviestoun