Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Beer Wars



When I was in first grade I lived in McAllen, Texas and attended an elementary school named Wilson. Near Wilson Elementary school was a candy store where me and the other students would get free candy if we did well on in school. Every semester we would bring our report cards to the store's owner and he would hand out red licorice for A's and black licorice for B's. The red licorice was great. It tasted like fruit; it had a nice texture; and it was even a cool color:red. The black licorice on the other hand was awful. For me, it tasted like candy gone wrong and it left your teeth black. Just dreadful. Well, I don't know if it was that I didn't like the taste of black licorice, or if I just a little "over-achiever" and didn't like B's,* but from that point on I always remember associating black licorice with something bad. In fact even today, when forced into taking shots of Jagermeister, all I can think of is that stupid store's demeaning "black-licorice-for-B's" policy.**

(*)Which I would have plenty of over the course of my academic career.
(**) It seems like no matter how hard I try, there will inevitably be someone I'm near that wants to do a shot of Jäger.

It's funny how a bad taste can stay in your mouth from one small association in life. That's why every time someone tells me they don't like a certain food, liquor or beer, I always wonder if there is an association to go along with this dislike. These associations are what I couldn't help but think of as I was watching Beer Wars, a documentary which chronicles the battle between beer's big breweries and micro breweries for real-estate in the U.S's collective beer gut.

The premise of the movie seemed to be that if micro-breweries could just show the average "American style lager drinking people" (think Bud Light, Miller Lite, Coors Light) how much better tasting a micro-brewery beer is, then the people's taste would be converted and brought away from the dark (licorice) side. However, as I learned early on in life, there is much more to taste than just taste.

Unfortunately, taste is never really discussed in this documentary, at least not in any nuanced sort of way, rather Beer Wars seems to just take it for granted that most people would agree that the taste of micro-breweries is better than the big breweries.*

(*)Although for the most point I tend to agree with this point.

Despite the absence of the subject of taste, a point which we'll come back to later, Beer Wars did prove to be somewhat entertaining as a movie and extremely informative as a history on the subject of beer in the U.S. The director/producer/writer and sometimes narrator of this documentary, Anat Boran, was the former head of Mike's Hard Lemonade.* Her previous position at Mike's gave her the "street cred" to gain access to a wide variety of different events, such as the Great American Beer Festival as well as access to people in the industry such as higher ups at Anheuser Busch, Sam Adams, Dogfish Head and Odell.

(*)Now this background on Boran was given early enough in the movie that it did not prove distracting, however I found it odd that Boran never discusses the disconnect between Mike's Hard Lemonade and the other craft beers she seems to be championing. And maybe I'm wrong, but I still can't take Mike's Hard Lemonade as a serious option for a beer drinker. I see how it can be relevant for someone who likes/D(?) Zima, or wine coolers, but not to a person who drinks beer.

Unfortunately, Boran's presence in the film sometimes seemed sudden and illogical. As the viewer starts to become interested in some of the people she follows such as the head of Dogfish Head, Sam Caligione and the former VP of Sam Adams, Rhonda Kallman, Boran's voice comes out of nowhere as voiceover as if to belabor the point that she's involved in the project.

While I thought Boran's voiceover was one of the weaker parts of the film, the stronger aspects came through the movie's history lessons on beer distributing such as the segment on the "three tier system." This system was originally set-up to protect the consumer from "bad brewer practices" by adding a third party: the distributor. However, the documentary is quick to explain how the distributor, once a safeguard, is now used as a device for the big brewing companies to create monopolies. It was subjects like the "three tier system" that kept me interested in watching this documentary.

When the documentary was finished, I couldn't help but come back to the subject of "taste," because it is a subject that I believe is so often wrongly explored. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have the palette of a great chef, or a sommelier, however, I don't think the "Chef" and "Somm" represent the average consumer. Moreover, I do not think anyone can ever taste anything in isololation. Your favorite margaritas are more than likely at your favorite Mexican restaurant where you've probably had a lot of good times. Your favorite food may be your mom's King Casserole, not because of the balance of flavors, but more likely because you associate "the King" with a certain time in your life. And no matter how much you hate the big breweries and their--in my opinion-- crappy beer, they try hard to be everywhere that you might be having a good time. So in the end, I think in order for micro-breweries to be successful (sell enough to make profit) they are going to not only have to make good beer, but also to promote an experience that will go along with their good beer. In other words they need to be the red licorice, not the black.



Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Death of a Showman?

On Sunday night the 53rd Annual Grammys aired on CBS. As a buddy and I texted back and forth about performances and Cee Lo's outfit we both noticed a bandwagon that the Grammys jumped on this year: good music. We were both pleased that a lot of good artists not only were nominated, but actually won i.e. Arcade Fire, Esperanza Spalding etc.

But I don't care about the winners, so much as I care about the performances. And one performance in particular struck me as telling. This performance was the B.o.B, Bruno Mars and Janelle Monáe collaboration. This collaboration worked for me in theory because I mostly like all three of these artists and they all showed off their musical chops by both singing/rapping and playing instruments. But, it was surprisingly Bruno Mars who I thought had setup an excellent platform for which to wow the audience, and ended up falling short. Here is the link to the performance on youtube.


Bruno Mars, B.o.B, Janelle Monae - Medley Live... by wonderful-life1989

I was pumped for Bruno's rendition of Grenade which was laced with Motown/Stax characteristics like backup singers doing call and response and smooth group choreography. Showmanship, what a novel idea. Unfortunately Bruno Mars didn't have the voice to impress. But I liked the effort.

But Bruno's performance got me thinking, now that Michael is gone are we now headed into a world where the next generation will be looking up to Usher and Lady Gaga as their pillars of performance? Is Showmanship slowly dying? I hope not.



Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Fatima- Love Lost


This is a blog about food, but since I have few to zero readers, I'm sure I won't disappoint anyone when I stray from my main subject matter. For me, today, I want to talk about Fatima.

Fatima is a song by the Somali artist K'naan off of his album Troubador. This song was named after a young girl K'naan fell in love with when he was 12 years old. I will never again be able to hear the name Fatima without thinking about this song and this young girl's story. I'm also sure that I will never be able to hear this song and not think of the beauty of love lost.

Yes, the beauty of love lost. I believe this song is able to create this contradictory sentiment by being both a picture and a mirror throughout the track.

The picture we first get is of a boy falling in love.

"And after school we studied the lessons
I ask God to slow down the seconds"

(later in the track)

"If beauty was in the eyes of the beholder,
how come everyone hushed when she walked by?
How come girls would look just to scold her?

Through these lyrics, K'naan has not only painted a picture of his young love, but he has also allowed us, the listeners, to see the reflection of our own lives. Through this song, we can see ourselves standing there in school, with butterflies in our stomachs, trying to talk to the girl we liked. We can feel the rush of excitement when we had our first kiss. It all seems so familiar. But, unfortunately the song quickly becomes more difficult to relate to when we learn that as a young girl Fatima was killed by gunmen in Somalia.

"Fatima, what did the young man say, before he took you away, on that fateful day?

At this point I know that I should not be able to see this song as a mirror any further. Nothing about my life can reflect the feeling of losing a love to violence in Somalia. But I couldn't help it. Through this song, I kept seeing the moments in my life when I felt the pain of losing someone. Maybe this reflection was not clear like a mirror, but rather faint like a window. A window that I could look through and see the outside world, yet at the same time, in some lights, see a faint reflection of my life.

I must admit that this made me feel ashamed. It seems so petty to think that I could relate having my heart broken, or having a relative pass away with losing a childhood love to violence. But I did. And I think I did this because when a love goes away, it is gone. It does not matter if that loved one was a grandmother who died of natural causes, a woman who decided she never wanted to talk to you again, or a girl you loved as a child who was killed in a War. In all of these cases, in that moment, when they leave, they are gone. And I believe it is very difficult for the heart to tell the difference.

I'll be the first to admit that I may be wrong. Maybe we all have experiences that are so unique that we can't possibly begin to understand what another person is feeling. But, if within this song I was able to get a glimpse into the love K'naan had for Fatima, while at the same time see the reflection of all the loves I've ever had and lost, then I think the world becomes a little smaller. And for me, a smaller world means that people are closer and can relate to each other more easily. And if it takes the feeling of lost love to help people relate to each other more easily, then I think love lost can be beautiful.

I posted a youtube link to the song. I hope you enjoy.

Fatima with lyrics