Beer Magazine: An Amateur’s Appraisal

I’m sort of in the market for a decent beer-related periodical. I want a decent value for my buck and I’m hoping to find something that I’ll enjoy reading – if not cover-to-cover, then nearly cover-to-cover. I pick up the odd copy of beer magazines when I see them. I’ve got the March 2009 issue of All About Beer and the July-August 2008 issue of Draft.

More recently, I picked up the July-August issue of Beer. This is actually my second copy of Beer magazine; I have the September-October 2008 issue sitting on the shelf, too. There may be a couple reasons why I’ve got two issues of Beer when I’ve only got one each of the others: Beer is more widely available and their magazines always sport some hot chick on the cover. (Yeah, I notice these things.)

But frankly, I’m still trying to decide where to send my subscription money and that’s a conversation for another time. Perhaps when I finally decide, I’ll make a post that spells out the reasoning behind my choice.

Meantime, I’d like to touch briefly on the good and the bad in the current issue of Beer magazine. No question, Beer magazine is aimed at a younger demographic that mine. The text is full of references to testicles, tits, and farts. The article format is an odd hybrid of the old USA Today, block section, microwave-cooking style aimed at busy folks with short attention spans. Okay, that’s fine. I’ve got a short attention span but as I’m getting older, I find that an organized, coherent format is always reassuring.

In the current (July-August) issue, I especially liked the Beer Anatomy segment dealing with Rauchbiers, that smoky style of beer that reportedly originated in Bamburg, Germany, centuries ago. I’ve enjoyed every smoked beer I’ve tried so far but my list is fairly short (Aecht Schlenkerla, Alaskan Smoked Porter and Stone Smoked Porter come to mind and the only three I remember trying to date). This article was informative, with really good tips on serving temperatures as well as terrific background on the variations of smoked beers. Noticeably absent from their list of common smoked beers was Alaskan Smoked Porter. I’d be curious to know if a brewer’s advertising history has anything to do with their odds of appearing on such a list.

Other highlights: I always enjoy the advertising because it gives me a notion of what to expect in the way of coming attractions. I really like the Taste Test section because, in addition to rating beers, they’ve gone the extra mile and included maps indicating what beers are available in what states. I like the beer models, too.

Now the downside. (Where I go all Beer Jerk.) I’m not a writer so I’m probably the least qualified person to be giving writing tips or criticisms. On the other hand, I am an experienced reader, which should qualify me to point out pointless dreck when I read it. The article entitled “Beer Worth Waiting For” is a hopeless hash of haphazard hooey. The piece is evidently about special release parties that brewers throw to bring out their limited release beers, but it’s too inside baseball to be of any use to me. I’m probably not hip enough to understand some of the references but I think I’m more in the loop listening to an hour of Howard Stern than I was trying to read this nonsensical piece. I’ll just end it there and assume the author was drunk when she wrote the article, the editor was drunk when he accepted the article and that, in order to preserve the natural order of things, I should have been drunk when I read the article.

That’s it folks. You didn’t ask for it, but there it is. Based on style, content and format, I’d have to say that Beer magazine is not high on the list of beer magazines for which I’d pay to have a subscription, but I’ve yet to fully explore the other options. I’m hoping to get something that’s monthly, inexpensive, reasonably educated but not snooty. I’ll keep looking.

Book Review: Christmas Beer

It seems that Christmas literally starts earlier and earlier each year. I’m not kidding when I say that one radio station where I live actually started playing 24-hour Christmas music the day after Halloween! Okay, if we really must have 60- or 90-days of Christmas, let’s have good beers and good reading material to go with that ceaseless music, okay?

I stumbled upon Don Russell’s book Christmas Beer (the full title is Wishing You a Merry Christmas Beer: The Cheeriest, Tastiest, and Most Unusual Holiday Brews.) in Salt Lake City. You can find it on Amazon and not have to trust to dumb luck that you’ll just chance upon it in some obscure book and card shop. Either way, and no matter, if you maintain a “beer library” here’s a book you should buy. If you don’t maintain a beer library, here’s a great starting point. If you don't read beer books but know someone who does (or should) then buy them this book.

This great book works on two levels: it’s an interesting read, and, having read it, you’ll find yourself picking it up again and again just to browse the contents. If you’re like me you’ll first scan through it to see how many of the beers listed are beers you’ve actually sampled. My personal beer list is rather short so I only checked off 3 or four beers, but happily, most are listed in Russell’s top 50. I was happy to see that a couple of beers that I really enjoyed, Hibernation Ale and 2 Below rated fairly high. The trick now is to track down some of the other beers listed.

Author and journalist Don Russell is more commonly known as “Joe Sixpack.” He writes a weekly Joe Sixpack column for the Philadelphia Daily News and, for the record, he was Joe Sixpack before that term was hijacked by politicians, pundits and news hacks. The moniker Joe Sixpack conjures up an image of a regular fellow who would likely pick up his share of bar tabs now and then. I refer to these sorts as “beer folk” and they’re good folk (sure there’s always a few stinkers, but they don’t get to be called beer folk). As if to confirm this notion, when I emailed Joe Sixpack and asked if he’d be willing to field a few short questions for a review of his book, he quickly replied in the affirmative. So, without any more foot dragging, here are BeerRant’s questions and Joe Sixpack’s answers to some burning questions about Christmas Beer:

BR: Do you go by “Joe or “Mr. Sixpack”? (Heh, heh, bet he hasn’t heard that one a million times.)

Joe: Joe’s fine. Or Don. Or anything if you’re offering me a beer.

BR: How long did you go between idea and realization in putting together Christmas Beer:

Joe: About three years. Of course I’ve been drinking Christmas beer for much longer than that, but in the winter of ’05 I realized nobody had ever written a book about my favorite beers of the year. That’s when I started collecting the beers I needed for the book and began my reporting.

BR: Many beer books include what I call the “ensemble shot” with a bottle of the beer next to a full glass of the beer. Any reason why you or our editor’s chose to have pictures of the bottles alone?

Joe: Simple reason: I had a limited photography budget. Setting up those shots of poured bottles is extremely difficult – you need 3 people to do it right, and it takes a lot of time to get the pour to look good. That means you need a hell of a lot more bottles than I could round up. Remember: these beers are available only about two months a year, so I had to do a lot of organizational work just to put together the collection. In the end, it was just easier to present the bottle. Maybe the next edition will include more pours.

BR: Did you select the 50 best and are they in the order you chose?

Joe: Yes, I selected the 50. A difficult task paring them down, and that’s my lineup as originally written. I rarely “rate” beers because I’m one of those people who believes everyone’s palate differs. But I wanted to highlight these 50 as beers that are worth the effort to seek out.

BR: Do you have a guilty favorite you were reluctant to disclose in the book?

Joe: No. Actually, my guilty favorite is the No. 1 pick, Troegs Mad Elf. I knew from the start that it might be a bit controversial because it’s a regional beer, available only in the Mid-Atlantic. It would’ve been much easier to pick, say Anchor Our Special Ale or Sierra Nevada Celebration (both of which made my top 10) because they’re readily available. I picked Mad Elf because it’s truly my favorite Christmas beer. But honestly, I love every one of the beers in this book.

BR: What will you be savoring as a Christmas beer this Christmas Eve?

Joe: I wait till Christmas night to break out the best stuff. My wife and I make a big deal out of sharing something special in front of our fireplace while we exchange gifts. I have some four-year-old Mad Elf, some two-year-old Affligem and a few others. I was a huge fan of last year’s batch of Corsendonk Christmas – if I can round up an aged bottle of that, I’d be very happy.

BR: Besides beer in general, can you tell us what your next beer book is going to be about?

Joe: I don’t have a next book lined up, yet. It’ll most certainly have something to do with the culture of beer-drinking, as opposed to a guidebook.

I have a suspicion that Christmas Beer will find a place beside Michael Jackson’s Great Beer Guide on many bookshelves this holiday season, but because this is the holiday season, I imagine Christmas Beer will spend a lot of time off the shelf, in the hands of eager Christmas beer drinkers. And if that’s Christmas music I hear, it must be Christmas Beer that I’m drinking – and reading!

My thanks to Don “Joe Sixpack” Russell for kindly agreeing to field some questions for this review. You give beer folk a good name, Joe.