I was forwarded a link to a new beer tasting feature in the Daily Nebraskan. That is, on the surface, great news. The first beer reviewed was from Nebraska Brewing, their EOS Hefe.
As the guys at Nebraska Brewing know ;-), Hefe is not my favorite beer style. I had the opportunity to visit them this weekend and try this beer. I tried to like it, but man, some styles just aren't for everyone and Hefe is one that I can't take. That being said, I can recognize a well made beer and this one is well made. Hefe's have a unique following and one hefe may be right up one person's alley and then the next may not be just because of a change in yeast and fermentation temperature. All that being said, they are making a quality beer and this is one of their better sellers.
So I read the review today from the Daily Nebraskan and it was OK but there was a glaring problem with the review. He claimed that cloves were added to the beer to get the banana character. While that can be perceived in the aroma and flavor, without even talking to Paul at Nebraska Brewing, I knew they did not add cloves or banana's to the beer. Those aromas and flavors are purely a by product of the yeast and the fermentation temperature.
So I am torn, on one hand having college kids interested in craft beer is a great thing and I don't want to stop the enthusiasm. So I hope he continues to write the articles and I will continue to share them here. On the other hand, a poorly researched review can do more damage to the craft beer movement then good. I took a look further at their blog Suds and Bubbles and it appears this was an isolated incident as expected. Looks like a they have a good blog going there. There were a few incidents still in the blog but they are minor as this one was.
I will encourage these guys to continue to write and learn, as if it matters what I have to say. I encourage our readers to assist them in their understanding of beer further too. This may be an isolated incident and won't happen again but let's help these guys become bigger beer geeks like the rest of us. God knows I need help from time to time too.
1 comment:
Gosh, why didn't we think to just add clove and banana to the beer instead of messing with that finicky weizen yeast in the first place! ;) Honestly, when we take this beer to events we often have a hard time convincing people that we don't put bananas in the beer. We've finally started to embrace this and have had a couple banana tap handles produced which I'm sure will further confuse people!
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