Craft Beer and The Problem With Cleverness

There's a lot going on in the craft beer industry right now, and a lot of it is good.  Beer has probably never been as good as it is right now.  Styles that have languished in obscurity for decades are enjoying a resurgence, and those of us who love all things beer can now taste what we once could only read about.  And standby styles are receiving fresh makeovers from the myriad new breweries popping up all over the country.  All in all it is a good time to be a beer lover.

One of the things that's going on in the craft beer industry right now is a whole lot of cleverness.  Witness the myriad clever beer names.  Some of them are clever by their inclusion of the beer style within the name, such as Pandora's Bock (Breckenridge), GnarlyWine (Lagunitas) and Mother in Lager (Karbach).  Some of them are clever by their reference to ingredients of note (usually hops), such as Hoppy Feet (Clown Shoes), Hoperation (various breweries), Humulus Lager (The Bruery), and so on.  And then there are the lion's share of "clever" beer names which have no specific reference to anything except what the brewery or its marketing group wanted to call it.  Some breweries are really good at this, and more often than not the labels for these beers are also exceedingly clever.  Some examples:



And then there is Clown Shoes, which takes the cake in this category.




And son on and so on.  The problem of course with most (if not all) of the beers in this last category is that without the fine print on the label, it's impossible to know what you would get if you ordered, say, "Muffin Top."  Does it have muffins in it?  Or abdominal fat?  Maybe the name implies the alcohol content - it's so high (and therefore high calorie) that you can expect your gut to burst from your pant waist.  Who knows?

For me this is a problem, but really only until I do get to the fine print.  However, as the team at Clown Shoes exemplifies with some bravado and hyperbole, cleverness for cleverness' sake is not necessarily a good thing.  It may work as a marketing strategy, no doubt about it.  I suspect a lot of people pick up a bottle of Arrogant Bastard for the first time simply because of the name.  And I think the people at Clown Shoes have developed a real knack for over-the-top label art to accompany their whimsical (and frankly inscrutable) beer names.  But to me this kind of thing is problematic.  Allow me to explain one reason why.

The craft beer industry is known for being clever, primarily in the actual practice of craft brewing.  Sierra Nevada broke the mold of what defined American beer when it founded its brand on Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.  This break from what was then tradition in American beer - namely pale lagers of minimal character - was a creative coup.  What followed over the decades was a repeated pattern of small scale creative brewers producing beers of new and impressive breeds.  The resurgence of the IPA style represents the zenith of this movement, as brewers one after the other pushed the envelope of the style, incorporating increasingly cleverer methods for infusing hop flavor into their beers.  Now it seems like the floodgates are open for Clever Brewing, so much so that you can find everything from coconut porters to cucumber wheats.  Brewers amateur and professional are cramming ingredients into their beers faster than we can record the shortcomings of their attempts, and the pursuit of Clever Beer is growing.

The problem is that if the craft beer industry is known only for the cleverness of its offerings, there may be less room for the less clever.  The very industry that resurrected the IPA could easily kill anything else.  While this is itself a hyperbolic claim, it's not entirely without merit as a concern.  An example.  I live in a reasonably sized city in which lately I can lay my hands on all kinds of great and new beers from a broad spectrum of breweries both domestic and international.  But if I went looking for a Scottish 60/- or an English ordinary bitter - no way.  Nothing doing.  You know what I can find in profusion?  India pale ales, in all shape, sizes and nationalities.  So while the hopped up styles soar, the low hop styles suffer.  While watermelon enjoys its time in the limelight as a clever addition to beer, no one is making gratzer.  (Well, almost no one; thanks Boston Beer Co. for giving it a try).  Basically if it isn't clever, i.e. big, oaked, fruited, dry-hopped, barrel-aged, soured or smoked, it isn't clever enough to be brewed.  At least not by the companies who distribute to Amarillo, Texas.

Now I know, I know - I'm just a grouch.  And I can see the upside to this argument.  For one thing, it's a great argument for homebrewing.  Can't find a Scottish 60/- at the store?  Then make one!  I agree with this perspective.  And I also like the possibility that small local breweries will spring up all over the country to fill the apparent niche markets for under-produced beers styles.  I'm actually hoping for this to happen in a big way.  But I'm also hoping that the craft beer industry will remain relevant because of something besides whimsy and cleverness.  I'm hoping that craft beer will become dominant and displace the swill from AB Inbev and MillerCoors.  I'm hoping that craft beer will inform and educate palates all across the country, not attempt to tailor pallets to a bombardment of hops or brettanomyces funk.  Those things are good, sure, but they're not the end-all-be-all of good beer.

The problem with cleverness may actually, in the end, be cleverness itself.  While it's important for brewers to be clever, it's more important for them to be very good.  I'd rather enjoy an American lager made well than an imperial IPA just because it was made.  But I must admit I do like those funny labels, and I applaude the creativity behind them.  It gives me something to giggle about as I take my Brooklyn Lager to the register.