For all the problems associated with modern industrialization (i.e., carbon emissions, pollution, and a plethora of other issues), there are some serious bright spots for the world of beer.  Like our planes, trains, and automobiles, we take these beer technological advances for granted, not taking the slightest second to appreciate some aspects of drinking a beer.  I’ve been thinking about this a little bit lately and want to offer just one more avenue for appreciating our beer.  Here are some points to consider when drinking a beer.  I’ll call them pint points.

Yeast: Let’s say you go to reach for one of your favorite beers.  First of all, why is it your favorite?  Well, that answer may involve a whole slew of reasons.  However, one of the simple answers is that you’ve come to love some of the tastes associated with those beers.  Beyond doubt, the type of malts used in the beer played a big role in making it what it was.  The hops also play a serious role (and it is interesting to note that hops have not always been widely utilized in making beer…a point we’ve written on previously and a sub-point which needs to be stressed.  Be thankful for hops).  But the real soul of the beer is yeast.

Yeast has always played a role in fermented beverages.  No yeast, no fermentation.  However, fermentation was viewed as a somewhat magical and mysterious process precisely because human beings, even the most educated, did not “know” about yeast.  In the Antonie van Leeuwenhoek first found yeast under the lens of a microscope in 1680 but didn’t consider it to be the living organism that it is.  It wasn’t until 1857 that the genius of Loius Pasteur properly spelled out the implications of what yeast was.  I suppose the great irony is also that many beers are pasteurized these days (i.e., they don’t contain living organisms like yeast).

Of course by the time that Pasteur “discovered” yeast, people had intuitively used yeast to “seed” the next beer for ages.  However, this discovery made for the eventual control of yeast strains.  Good aspects could be kept and bad taken out.  It allowed the isolation of what is now the lager strain of yeast, which brings us back to your favorite beers.  Part of what makes some of these beers our favorites is that we have the advantage of consistency.  Way back when, what sort of beer one got could be largely unpredictable.  What we have now is a consistency that is, historically, unparalleled.  So remember that we are the recipients of the hard work done by a beer loving people.

Modern Malting Technics: Speaking of your favorite beer, what color is it?  Is it smoky?  I’m afraid that you had no choice in the past.  Because most beers would have been done over a wood fire or a wood fire driven heating method, your beer would have been smoky.  Not only would it have been smoky, it would have been dark.  All beers would have been dark.  No bright pilsners or Belgian golden ales would have existed.  No Duvel?  My God!  The reason behind this is that modern methods of roasting grains, such as the drum roller did not exist.  Essentially, to get the grains in the very middle of the bed to be useful for making beer, the bottom grains would have to be heated to higher temps and roasted more.  This made for all dark beers, not to mention higher possibilities of explosions in the malting house.  But there were some light grains at the end of the tunnel.

When the British figured out a way to make paler malts in the mid 1600s (this is where pale ale comes from and also why pale ale is actually burnish bronze [and other colors] and not actually pale; it’s only pale in a comparative sense), the “coke” was used for roasting malts.  It not only led to lighter malts but to the driving off of smoke.  This was wonderful for flavor variety and beer color.  By the early 1700s, the term pale ale was in use.  Advances kept moving and we now enjoy whatever colors and flavors of beer we want, largely due to advances in malting.  Famous brewing waters like Burton were now able to leave their indelible mark on beers.  By the mid-late 1800s, some of the lightest beers on earth came around.  The pilsner was born and is now the most popular beer style in the world.  But why?

Glassware: I suppose most of us pour our beer into a glass.  Maybe some of us just drink it out of the bottle.  But if you use a glass, one point needs to be noted.  Glassware was not always for everyone. Glassmaking, also known as disambiguation, was costly and time consuming.  In fact, clear glass was the privilege enjoyed by only the rich until the 1840s.  In the 1840s, advances allowed for glass to become affordable to the middle class.  Before this, people drank from leather, metal, stein, clay and all manner of glasses.  It actually wasn’t too big a problem, simply because beers were pretty much dark and smoky.  But now because of malting advances people could see their brilliant clear golden ales through glass.  No wonder pilsner (real pilsner, not Bud) acheived such popularity; it’s still brilliant in the glass.  So remember, even though it’s aphoristic for beer drinkers to have the right glass for the right beer to enhance aromas, it’s also true that those glasses give a window into the appearance of the beer as well.  Let’s all stop and ponder that look of our beers because we have a privilege that most people haven’t.

Refrigeration: Talk about the stars aligning.  The early 1800s saw ammonia based refrigeration (still in use widely), compression cooling, and general advances in cooling.  The rise of pilsner was further enhanced by this simple fact.  Now a pilsner could be made almost anywhere.  Lagering itself become more feasible once icy caves didn’t have to be utilized as before.  Of course, the ability to refrigerate led to stability and longevity in products as well.  More shipping became possible.  What’s more, beer could be made year round.  Much of the logic behind German purity law was based on the fact that some months were too hot for brewing and fermenting beer.  It was just too risky.  That being the case, beer was stored for months in caves (Marzens and Oktoberfest are the historical out-workings from this phenomenon) for a long period in order to have a supply.  Because of the heat, during certain times brewing was legally forbidden in Germany.  But when refrigeration came about, brewing year round became plausible.  Supplies were not so short.  Even now we chill beer in the fridge or store it there to lengthen it’s shelf life.  We all need to bear in mind that we’re not just grabbing a cold one; we are holding, in our hands, an advantage that most beer drinkers never had.

Packaging: Speaking of holding a bottle or can in our hands, we are fortunate here as well.  Think about how long good bottles and cans have existed.  Really, it’s just a fraction of time in the stream of history.  I’m not going to delve into it too much here; the article is already long enough, but aren’t we lucky to have bottles and cans that lengthen the life, reduce the oxidation, and increase the transportability of our beers?  We get kegs, bottle, and cans that travel from all over the world.

Transit and Variety: Another amazing part of what we get is the shear number of possibilities.  We are no longer under the constraints of village insularity, although some drinkers cling to it still (metaphorically, of course).  The numbers and types of beer that we get to have, particularly in America, are mind boggling. Most of the above makes this possible.  Now we have a consistent, stable, refrigerated product, which is packaged for shipping.  What is more, we have planes, trains, and automobiles.  Even the ships that beer comes on have to ability to refrigerate.  This is true of the semis that beers come on as well.  Modern commerce allows us to get beers from all over the place.  So, the next time I’m whining about not being able to buy New Glarus, a collaborative brew, Dark Horse or some other brewery, I’m going to remind myself that I’m not relegated to drinking one or two beers for a lifetime.  Rather, I already have a global village of beer around me.  We sure can be a thankless bunch when we don’t get that one niche beer.

Gastronomy: Once again, the USA is full of possibilities.  We ourselves don’t have a firmly rooted culinary tradition.  As a result, we borrow quite a bit from other cooking traditions.  Yet, many of use eat the same insipid foods day in and day out.  But we have the greatest number of cheap and available spices and food that humanity has ever seen.  It would be tragic if our gastronomy remained weak.  It would be doubly tragic if we didn’t realize that all these beers available to us combine with all these foods available to us for a thing of shear beauty.

Final Imploring: This is for me to say to myself, “Mike, please, next time you are eating a wonderful meal that you’ve pair with a wonderful beer, remember the fact that you are drinking that brilliant beer–in that lovely glass–with those wonderful, consistent, and fresh flavors; realize that you are truly privileged to be living at this time in history.  Very few people have experienced what you are experiencing right now.” Amen!  It sounds like a prayer of thanksgiving!  What other points would you guys and dolls like to see on this list?