I know a few brewers read this from time to time and I’m wondering something (just my curiosity, nothing more)… There are books that I read or films which I watch and then think: damn, I wish I’d written this. But, are there any beers out there which make you think: damn, I wish this was my beer?Maybe you’d want the commercial success of it, the critical success or just the personal success, knowing that you’ve brewed something which you completely love. I think there must be at least one beer out there which you jealously crave as your own, maybe the one which made you love beer in the first place… And this can extend to home brewers too. Or, which do you wish you could recreate? And why not open it to everyone: which brewery do you wish was yours? Who is making the beer (or doing the business/marketing) which is most closely aligned to the type of thing you want from a brewery? Hell, if there’s books/films/songs you wished you written, then tell me them too. I’m in a spritely and curious mood this morning fueled by waking up early to write.
There are some beers I'd to nick the commercial success from and others I wish I had brewed, one day I mght try and brew a beer the same as those but I'm not going to tell you which you'll have to work it out for your self.
ReplyDeleteAs for films and books, I'm a watcher & reader couldn't write anything good to save my life.
My choices...
ReplyDeleteBooks: Suskind's Perfume, Albom's The Five People you Meet in Heaven, most sentences by Vonnegut, Kundera and Palahnuik.
Films: Amelie, American Beauty, Stranger than Fiction, Inglourious Basterds.
Beers I'd like to make in my kitchen: Pliny the Elder, Jaipur, zeitgeist.
Interesting question, although like Stu, I often wish for greater commercial success, as a brewer I'm interested in knowing how various flavours are produced. I don't think I could name one beer, but I work hard to understand how flavours are arrived at.
ReplyDeleteAmerican style IPA, Belgian Trappists and massive stouts are my interests just now.
Dave we think alike those are my top must brew styles, Collaboration brew?
ReplyDeleteI just wish I could get some decent labels done for the Homebrew.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could make and keep a world class yeast like St Austells, and jam as much falvor in as Wipe Out IPA.
As far as marketing? I wish I had come up with 'will it blend'. Awesome Idea.
Stu, that sounds like a great idea. I'm booked on a Brewlab course in November, hopefully I'll be able to tap their brains for methods. We'll talk Monday.
ReplyDeleteNow, see what you've started Mark, if there ends up being a Hardknott-Crown Brewery collaboration it'll be all your doing.
Hmmm, good question! For me it has to be Birrificio Italiano's Tipopils, Saison Dupont and a new revelation which has overthrown my favourite US supping ale (Sierra Nevada Pale Ale), Odell's St. Lupulin Ale, I freakin love that beer!!
ReplyDeleteThat Jaipur is pretty good too :)
I wish I knew how they get Brooklyn Brewery's Chocolate Stout to taste so choclately using an all malt grist.
ReplyDeleteid like to be able to brew a nice session beer like hambleton stallion, something like beer geek breakfast and something like halycon.
ReplyDeletei would have said ring of fire too but thats happening soon ;o)
That is one of the nice things about homebrewing, you can try to recreate a beer, or even better one that you quite like. I think I did that with my Limelight Wheat Beer, it was, to use the Beer Nut's words "like drinking lemon merique pie". My next target, and I am brewing this next week, is a good imperial stout.
ReplyDeleteBeers I wish were ours....
ReplyDeleteThree Floyds Alpha King
Cantillon Rose de Gambinius
Anything by Alesmith
Orval
Dave, Stu - If that happens then it needs to be called The Dredge, or something like that :)
ReplyDeleteColin wants to have a peek at Pictish's Alchemist brew sheet. Sutty would probably tell him anyway.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm a little obsessed with Dogma at the moment...its pepperiness is addictive. I'd break in and nick the recipe, but it's too far to drive to. And I wish it was Cuvee de Dominic instead of Cuvee de Tomme...
Dominic, fresh for your (rather vulgar if I may say so) display of power on Friday, I suspect you may have a few others to covet after the De Molen blast at the end of the month.
ReplyDeleteBeers: Darkstar Hophead, Rochefort 10 and Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout.
ReplyDeleteFilms: Das Boot, Big Fish, Edward Scissorhands, Pan's Labyrinth, Exiztenz, American Psycho.
Albums: John Martyn 'Solid Air', Calexico 'Feast of Wire', Mumford and Sons 'Sigh no More' (this was really tough)
Books: JD Salinger 'Catcher in The Rye', Douglas Adams 'Hitchiker's Guide....', Sebastian Faulks 'Human Traces', Hanif Kureshi 'Buddah of Suburbia'.
A couple dear to my heart (in no particular order):
ReplyDeleteOrval
Green Flash West Coast IPA
La Chouffe
Lakefront East Side Dark
What beers do I wish I'd brewed? I'll have to jump on the Orval bandwagon, and I also wish I'd brewed our very own Sam Lanes' home brew which I tried for the first time last night.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about other things, I don't know if I genuinely wish I'd written them, so this might just be a bit of a favourites list.
I'd certainly be very proud if I'd written Essential Beauty by Philip Larkin, poetry on advertising and society.
I'm jealous of Picasso as I've always wished I could paint like that, and on a similar cubist note I don't think I could be prouder than if I'd written Dylans' Tangled Up In Blue.
And I have a mega list of inventions I wished I'd thought of before I saw them on Dragon's Den!