Michael Jackson, who is the beer critic of beer critics, has died as the age of 65 from Parkinson’s disease:
Jackson especially loved Belgian brews. His books “The Great Beers of Belgium” and “World Guide to Beer” introduced them to many export markets, including the United States.
By identifying beers by their flavors and styles, and by pairing them with particular foods and dishes, Jackson helped give birth to a renaissance of interest in beer and breweries worldwide that began in the 1970s, including the North American microbrewery movement.
This is to the beer community like losing Jeff Cooper was to us gunnies. This weekend, I will enjoy a bottle of Liefmans Frambozen in his memory. So long Michael.
Hat tip to Rustmeister.
This is to the beer community like losing Jeff Cooper was to us gunnies.
Are there perhaps four absolute rules of proper beer handling I need to have ingrained before I pick up a bottle?
1. Water
2. Barley
3. Yeast
4. Hops
Never violate those four sacred rules and your beer will always be fine.
Major commercial brewers (Budweiser) for instance, violate rule 2 routinely by switching out barley for rice or corn – and the result is always disastrous. I’d also say many microbrewers violate these as well, by iunsisting on adding fruit and other contaminants – such as Magic Hat’s Apricot Flavored #9 – yech!
When I worked in the microbrewery back in law school, I once had the honor of giving Jackson an after hours tour. He’d been through before (and found our Porter to be the best in the country) but hadn’t stopped in since we had made a couple of changes and wanted to just hang out and look around and drink.
It was great. I should do a blog post about it.