Flight or fright? Russo says go with the whole pint
A fair and accurate criticism of craft beer drinkers is that they always want to try something new. For a lot of them, tasting beers is more a perspective than just a disposition, but also an approach to beer that can be rife with disappointment.
The same can be said for brewers. A lot of them know that if they don’t occasionally make a beer that doesn’t appeal to many people, they may not be trying hard enough to innovate.
After all, innovation for its own sake is part and parcel of culinary life, but it isn’t about merely trying new approaches just to try them. As with any art, the will to make something new is part of a larger attitude about excellence and uniformity.
Pretty much every fast food hamburger is perfect, meeting the exacting specifications and rigorous standards developed to reduce the likelihood of deviance from the norm. The same can be said for a big production beer that tastes the same in Japan as it does in Milwaukee. They are perfect unto themselves and beyond criticism on their own terms, but it is hard to say they are excellent. They trade the possibility of excellence for being uniform as a rule.
To put it another way, we can be disappointed when we expect excellence. So, whether trying a new restaurant or a new beer, if you haven’t had a disappointing taste experience in awhile, you might not be pushing you taste buds hard enough. There is something to be said for disappointment.
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But the possibility of being disappointed doesn’t appeal to people, especially when they’re trying craft beer. One of the compromises is the “tasting flight,” those paddles of four to six or so little beers breweries sell so people can get a sense of the different available styles. It’s a novel idea and has helped win over more than a few people to the possibilities of craft beer.
It also relies a little bit on a Pepsi Challenge-type scenario. The Pepsi Challenge offered 2-ounce tastings of Pepsi and Coke side by side and most people liked Pepsi better. The criticism of the method, though, is that you don’t drink soda 2 ounces at a time.
To be fair, beer is a different animal altogether and 4 ounces is a lot more than 2, but there’s something to be said about occasionally forgoing a flight of tasters. For a lot of people, the approach to having a taster is to see which of the beers they want to try by the pint. When you know what you’re getting you’re definitely much less likely to be disappointed, but you also are a lot less likely to be surprised, having discounted a beer because it didn’t impress you on the first taste.
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This isn’t to say that there is no place for tasters or that there’s anything wrong with relying on your first beer impressions. Tasters are a fun way to get a quick tour of a brewery’s beers and a sense of what you are likely to prefer about it or not. They also are a great way to enjoy beers as a couple, sipping and discussing each beer in the flight, sharing small tastes with one another and ending up passing a couple hours just hanging around without worrying about overconsumption.
But just as it is a treat every now and then to try a brand new food at a brand new restaurant, trying a new beer start to finish, especially at a brewery you already like, is a worthwhile experience.
Craft beer changes as it sits in the glass. More flavor comes out of it as it warms up and, the more you drink of a particular beer, the better the subtlety of all the different tastes and aromas come through. People who try craft beer often will have experienced both the surprise of having a beer they weren’t nuts about get better and falling out of love with a beer they thought they were going to like.
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This, as much as anything else, is why so many craft beer drinkers love trying new beers, for the possibility of being elated or disappointed, for the promise of a surprise.