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JORIS’ CELLAR BLOG
4 March
THE BREWERY VISIT PARADOX
I am an honest beergeek. Nothing more, nothing less. I take lively interest in (well-made) beer. I am prepared to travel pretty long distances to look for good beer. Yes, being always on the lookout for something new, might make my customerprofile look a bit fickle. Yet - as we have a saying in Dutch "The customer is King". So - do I have a right to some égards, just based on that assumption?
But now, let us look at it from another point of view. Especially from a Belgian brewer's one - bearing in mind two things: first, that Belgium is, and has been for the last decennium a bit of the El Dorado for beerlovers, and second, labourcosts have soared through the ceiling in this social security paradise. A brewery is a commercial business. If they spent time - and inevitably - money, on visitors, then they ought to have some return. It ought to be of some importance to the brewery, to welcome all this funny characters on the brewery grounds, lead them around, "water" them, and see them of happy. They have no time to loose, no words to waste.
Not with me yet? Well, in the last couple of years, I've arranged - for myself as for some guests - some very serious breweryvisits. Meaning, a technical person, in most instances the head brewer, leading us around the facilities, talking serious shop, and spending quite some time on our little ego's. And if I say "serious breweryvisits", I'm talking about some breweries with ringing names. For that, I mailed/phoned/spoke to people or contacts, and made sure they knew that I have been this, am doing that, wrote there and speak to suchandsuch. And every time, whereas I was reasonably proud to be walking with Ir. Masterbrewermans at Brewery Topofthebill, it had made me feel a bit wretched before, to wave around a name, an organisation abbreviation, the name of my brewing companion from Farabroad, etc.
It makes perfect sense to the brewery. If I write books about beer; if I am asked to give lectures about beer, sit at jurytables, the brewery can present itself at its best, and get a good press. They are not wasting their time on an elderly couple, that thinks that beer gets coloured with grapes. A big brewery, with a serious PR-program, can organise tours for such a thing, and pay a starlet, get her into a uniform, to mealmouth 30 pensioners around.
I've been on that kind of tour. I have stopped trying to ask questions on such outings. Either I'm met with blank stares, either I get a giggle (sorry, I know I'm being macho) and a whisper that that is company secret (such as at which temperature they measure density…) In one memorable occasion (abroad - not even in Belgium!) I ended up leading the tour of the brewery, that I saw for the first time in my life, pretty much myself. For a brewery, this is a shame.
Thus, just because I am Joris P(…) Pattyn, I can do what Mr. Homer Marriedwithkids cannot do? If Homer is an honest beergeek, just isn't known from earth by the brewer, can't he have a visit with some info? Has he to ring two months in advance; try to remember names of brewers he might have met in the past or at least knew the name of their housecat? Or else, join a herd of his lookalikes, and tour around pretending he's having the time of his life?
Why do I whine about this now? Because, last week, I got it in my head to go to a brewery unannounced, without any preliminary intros. They had no time for us, logically. Don't ask me the name of the brewery, as I don't want to put them in a bad light - the more as I think they were right to tell me so. But afterwards, I got told by my MIO, to being an eejit, that I ought to have thrown my name and importance(?) around, and then ought to have gained entrance. I beg to differ. My name ought not to work as some masterkey on any brewerydoor.
So - an insolvable puzzle? Well, maybe not quite. Already half a lifetime ago, I visited Scotland. That place being a bit poor on breweries, especially then, we visited distilleries. Even on some faraway places, on unlikely locations, distilleries had a (mini) visitors' centre, and in one such a place, a girl affiliated to the distillery, and knowing her business, lead us two boneheads around with infinite patience and artless hospitality. Just the two of us! They regulary do tours, several times a day, 6 days in a week. There's always a way. Maybe Belgian brewers ought to look into that.
A couple of hours after our failed breweryraid, we came, as unannounced, at the gates of another brewery. I had visited those people before… 22 years ago, so they didn't know me from earth. We asked, very demurely, could we have a quick look around, pretty please? We ended up boozing with the brewer for several hours…
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JORIS’ CELLAR BLOG ARCHIVE: 2008
19 January - January is a rather sad month for the beertaster.
3 February - The pains of failures and take-overs
18 February - IT OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN BRUSSELS BIS
4 March - THE BREWERY VISIT PARADOX
25 March - MEMORIES OF A FESTIVAL
21 April - The truth about Isabelle Proximus or how a big brewery can be very small indeed
28 April - SoCal MUSINGS: Part 1
1 May - SoCal MUSINGS: Part 2
1 May - SoCal MUSINGS: Part 3
2 May - SoCal MUSINGS: Part 4
3 May - SoCal MUSINGS: Part 5
5 May - SoCal MUSINGS: Part 6
13 June - PREJUDICE, COMPLACENCY, CHAUVINISM, NARROWMINDEDNESS and other human niceties
9 July - New 2008 American tasting at CK's
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