BeerAdvocate Magazine Issue #7
The ‘Food Issue’. Definitely a step in the right direction from the last issue, but also seems to be a little trendy to me, a little with the times instead of ahead of the times. Right now, and for the last while, beer & food pairings and cooking with beer have been hot topics. Cool that they are choosing to advocate this, but often I have felt that these guys were slightly ahead of the curve. Oh well, what’s next the ‘Session Issue’?
Right off the bat in the Beer Smack section (where the two founding brothers sign off) there is a great little list of things a restaurant or chef can do to make their place a better beer/food location. I actually thought this was really great, would love to see it flushed out. Perhaps printed in a book-mark-esque format and then flood the restaurant and beer scene so everyone in the business sees this information. Another very current debate going on in the beer world is something along the lines of: are mass produced craft-style beers still craft beer? Like Blue Moon for example. Blue Moon is made by Coors, Anheuser Busch also has several on the market right now. And the debate kind of goes like this; if it were a blind tasting, based on what you see, smell, fee, and taste in the glass (and this is the only information you know) what makes it a craft beer? And should these better mass produced beers be considered craft? I like Blue Moon as a wit, regardless of who makes it. I don’t think it is the best, but it sure is a clean easy drinker. That’s about as far as a fully formed answer that I have so far. Aahhh, 9 Steps to Beerdom, my favorite! This time featuring Rob Tod from Allagash – sounds like he’s one hard working lucky bastard! When we finally get to the main featured article on food & beer, ‘Beer: It’s what’s for dinner’ it isn’t a disappointment. It’s five short interviews with America’s top beer chefs plus included recipes from the chefs. Basically the common denominator that I gathered from the article was use any and all beer, use the beer in a reduction to amplify the flavor, if the flavor is in the beer it will come through in the reduction, and don’t be afraid to experiment. The article actually made me consider getting a job in a kitchen again, fun times with lots of headaches and low pay – sucks. My favorite recipe was for Sean Paxton’s Liquid-Nitrogen-Infused Rochefort 10 Ice Cream, damn right! One it uses Rochefort 10 for the beer (awesome beer), he explains how this style could be applied to make individual ice-creams ala Ben & Jerry’s style (my own words), and it allows you to play with liquid-nitrogen! Now, does anyone know where I can get my hands on some liquid-nitrogen! Next was the too many pages of beer reviews again, I’m starting to sound as repetitive as their reviews, yyaaawwwwnn. Interestingly though, the majority of the beers this time (and I bet hence forth) were either from a brewery or from an importer. Though I know beer is what they do, it must be nice to get that much “free” beer. The issue has a little section in the back that I rarely talk about called Beer Destinations and this time it was all about San Diego. There is enough action going on there that we might need to plan a vacation, nice! Overall, best issue since about issue #4, way to get back on top of things.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:54 am
I know you complain about the beer reviews, because I think the general feeling is the magazine is an extension of the website, but do you think they are trying to change that. They may be trying to have them act as parallel information sources. I also feel they are trying – and I could be wrong, but I am not aware of any other publication – to position themselves as the beer world version of Wine Enthusiast .
July 10th, 2007 at 9:42 am
I have never read Wine Enthusiast so I can not say about that. And I do feel that they are trying to make some parallels with the website to tie everything together, though they want each to be seperate. There is another magazine, All About Beer, I think it is called that does beer reviews too and they just get boring I suppose. I mean ten pages with three beers on each page, that’s thirty beers per issue. Sometimes I’ll read them if they are beers I have had or heard of, but generally it is the same thing over and over again – boring. I don’t know, maybe it’s good marketing for themselves and the beer companies, but it really isn’t interesting (for me) to read unless the beer means something to me. Supposedly they will be adding more reviews too, I can’t wait!