Beer Is Not Wine CBS!

I feel ultra compelled to share the following with you.

As a member of the Brewers Association, one receives a daily Monday through Friday e newsletter chock full of great information, conversation, happenings and so on. Horst Dornbusch posted this spot on piece this week.

This, sadly, made me laugh out loud - and then get slightly pissed off.  ‘To wit’ indeed Mr. Dornbusch.

I’m in your camp and wanted to share it with WEB followers. If you agree readers, SPEAK UP !! Call CBS, NBC, FOX, whoever demand accuracy and proper representation and get them to realize Craft Beer is NOT a novelty nor nearly this ridiculously monochromatic. You get the idea. Act and we shall all receive.

Here it is.

“Mainstream Media Still does not (!) Understand Beer

Beware of false saints!

I followed Julia Herz’s link to http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/03/earlyshow/saturday/main6643411.shtml?tag=pop in BA Forum Vol. 16-0706, which guided me to “CBS Early Show features wine expert Ray Isle talking up ‘Beervana’ in Portland, OR.”

While it is commendable that organizations like CBS have begun to recognize the existence of craft beer as an important part of our culture, I believe the piece behind the link shows how far we still have to go in educating the media and much of society about craft beer. To wit:

* Why on earth does CBS need a “wine expert” to showcase craft beer? As if there weren’t enough brewers or beer journalists who could have lent a (competent) hand!

* And then there was this zinger in the write-up: “Rogue Dead Guy Ale: This is a darker, more intense style of ale (technically, it’s a German style called a Maibock).” This is inexcusable (even though in Texas, equally inexcusably, a Bock must be called an “ale” by law). I really must tell my friends in Munich about this American “Bock” innovation! With such brew-technical nonsense, Mr. Isle has shown himself to be a mere vacuous pontificator, a false saint!

* A quick look at his food pairings, too, reveal Mr. Isle’s rather unsophisticated understanding of beer: He singles out as suitable pairings “grilled seafood, raw oysters, that sort of thing;” “chicken, potato chips, pretzels, you name it;” “hamburger;” “anything from fried shrimp to French fries;” “sausages on the grill, barbecued ribs, that kind of thing.” How pedestrian and utterly predictable!
“That sort of thing, that kind of thing, you name it,” and—who would have thought—hamburger, pretzels, and fries (!)…such is the august advice from a culinary “expert.” To me this is proof that there is still a huge wall of ignorance about good beer out there that we must not tire to tear down!
Horst Dornbusch
Cerevisia Communications
West Newbury, Massachusetts