The Great American Beer Book
Robertson, James D.
BOOK REVIEW The Great American Beer Book James D. Robertson / Caroline House / $14.95 Michael Ryan The effect of any given beer on any given palate at any given time is a matter at once...
...Robertson's discovery of paniculate matter in suspension strains credibility and libels a national asset...
...Would that he had the skill to do it justice...
...Heineken in cans on a sardine-packed 747 is unbearable...
...An ambitious notion...
...but Mr...
...Perhaps Robertson's tasters simply got hold of uniformly bad samples of all the foreign brews they tried-for certainly a committee of true-born American officers and gentlemen should have a finer taste for these beers than this volume indicates...
...Robertson proposed to take the measure of all beers-at least those within the 48 states and selected transoceanic jurisdictions-rate each against the others, and, with the aid of a panel of tasters (almost all of them some sort of superaltern in the Air Force), select the finest beers in the world...
...BOOK REVIEW The Great American Beer Book James D. Robertson / Caroline House / $14.95 Michael Ryan The effect of any given beer on any given palate at any given time is a matter at once unpredictable, perverse, and virtually inexplicable...
...In truth, there is no such thing as a bad beer...
...after game time, when the bar is packed with heavy hitters and the air fills with the smoke of green cigars, the Knick is hardly passable...
...likely a bad can...
...To their credit, though, the tasters are not captives of mystique...
...It is useful for its opening notes on the history and techniques of brewing, diverting in subject matter, colorful, but finally disappointing...
...Even more suspect than Robertson's facts are the opinions of his tasters...
...Heineken in cans on the patio of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam on a sunny afternoon is unbeatable...
...All told, The Great American Beer Book is a noble effort, and well-meant, with a heady nose and a thin follow-through and a watery aftertaste...
...It is disconcerting, for example, to run through the body of the book- which is organized by country of origin of the beers, and by brewery of manufacture Michael Ryan, Executive Editor of Boston magazine, has written for Newsweek, TV Guide, and other national publications...
...How else can one explain the jury's more eclectic verdicts- like the classification of Stella Artois as "yellow-gold color with paniculate matter in solution, soapy aroma, bitter metallic taste throughout...
...Robertson, alas, had not the resources to carry it off...
...Thus, we are told that the product now called MacEwan's Strong Ale was formerly called MacEwan's Tartan Ale...
...The crippling problem of The Great American Beer Book is that its author, apparently unable to execute the definitive beer book, plunged bravely forward anyway, leaving gaps, holes, and inaccuracies throughout...
...there are bad times for drinking good beer, and beers that will always taste bad except under the most heroic circumstances...
...Robenson recognizes Coors as overrated and even takes a shot (unfairly, I think) at the Eastern veneration for Rolling Rock...
...Although Mr...
...Robertson's constant refrain...
...Their samples were acquired randomly, and they must have been particularly unfortunate in tapping a run of bad cans and bottles for many of the tested beers...
...Likewise, the tepid finding on Watney's Red Barrel-"Flavor stans out strongly malty but finishes sour, long aftertaste on the sour side"-challenges the reader's faith...
...There is no perfect beer-only a number of brews which, combined with the right ambience and attitude, produce the perfect Beer Experience...
...But only the darkest Jansenist could deny the essential goodness that lives within the soul of any beer...
...Rolling Rock, in bottles, on a summer afternoon, afloat in Marblehead Harbor, can be the perfect beer...
...Somewhere, in some Transcaucasian taverna, some local in Golders Green, or some Second Avenue saloon, there must be an author who can do justice to the matter of beer, who can memorialize it with the language of a poet and the efficiency of an engineer, instead of the reverse, as this book has done...
...The dime Knickerbocker at the Clam Bar on Main Street in Flushing is the perfect beer before a Mets game...
...Robertson has chased down kegged, canned, and bottled beers all over the nation, tasted and rated them, and written thorough descriptions of hundreds of brews...
...Robertson is billed on the book jacket as an MIT-trained "electronics engineer," he has enough of the spirit of poetry in him to recognize the sublimity of his subject...
...This excellent, full-bodied Belgian beer is one of the few pleasant facts of life in the Low Countries...
...But he is unsure of what he knows, unable to state with confidence what brands are available where, and often unable to avoid contradicting himself...
...Thus, the draft Olympia at the West End Hotel on Genessee Street in Kansas City, on an August afternoon two years ago when the temperature went to a digit more than the inflation rate and Ford and Reagan were jousting for a minor party nomination -Olympia, in that climate, at that time, was the perfect beer...
...Robertson is no slave of fashion...
...I view the case and victory for Coors as evidence that it is greatly concerned with making the finest product it can, and with assuring its customers that each purchase of Coors is a worthwhile one...
...Yet, a few paragraphs further on, Robertson reviews Tartan Ale and Strong Ale separately, finding the former "dark brown with red hues" and ascribing to the latter a "deep copper and gold color...
...This much can be said for the author of The Great American Beer Book: He has a noble subject and one which he obviously appreciates...
...Though he is often terribly wrong-headed, Mr...
...and discover a section headed "Brewery name not given on label.'' If the author and the publishers had been serious about this book, they would certainly have underwritten the cost of a researcher to nail down these details, and to keep the author from straying into such statements as: It is understood that Adolph Coors took the matter to court and won his suit to limit the market of Coors to boundaries determined by the company...
...He is even unwilling to credit his own assertions as true, and so couches them in the language of hearsay...
...It is understood" is Mr...
Vol. 12 • February 1979 • No. 2
