Categories
opinion

Simplicity or Diversity?

Beer maze

We favour a diverse beer market with lots of choice, in which everyone can find something to their taste.

That, by definition, means more beers on sale that some people won’t like — too fizzy, too sour, too hazy, too flat, too strong, too expensive, too sweet, too something, to appeal to everyone.

Simple rules — clear is good, ‘real ale’ is best, no ‘additives’ — are easy to learn, but also lead to homogeneity.

If we want more interesting beer, we need to accept more complicated rules.

Yes, that might put some people off playing, but it might well draw others in.

Categories
opinion

Controlled Inconsistency

Spot the difference.

Might there be benefits to inconsistency in brewing beyond acting as a badge of ‘authenticity’?

As we understand it, the brain is wired to detect change and movement, so that which is new is stimulating, while repetition or stasis are irritating and/or boring.

We suspect that a beer brewed to exactly the same specification for many years will suffer the same fate: “It’s not what is used to be.”

Perhaps, therefore, barely detectable adjustment in the hop profile or malt bill might be just the thing to help a beer continue to stand out.

A change is, after all, as good as a rest.