On Stouts: Don’t Judge A Beer By Its Color
Today, the New York Times ran an article about Stouts (the beer) in which the author, Eric Asimov, and others tasted 19 different American stouts. Asimov (no relation to Isaac?) made a pretty good point, and one that is often overlooked or ignored, that stouts traditionally are low in alcohol, possibly even lower than the Buds, Coors, and Millers of the big breweries, and have a much more delicate flavor than the name implies and the color indicates.
You can check out the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/dining/reviews/28wine.html?_r=1&8dpc
This discussion of stouts makes me wonder, as I have before, why so many people tend to classify beers, and base their own preferences of beer, solely on color. While color sometimes provides an indication of what a given beer will taste and smell like, it’s by no means fool-proof.
I’ve tried to think of an apt analogy for this phenomenon, but the best I’ve come up with is “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” The ugliness of a given John Grisham book’s cover will not keep people from reading it en masse, just like the attractiveness of a new edition of David Foster Wallace’s 1000+ page Infinite Jest will not likely be an impetus to read or not to read. End lit. references and book analogy. There are just too many things that go into making a beer that affect how it tastes to only consider what it looks like. Are people really so lazy that they make their drinking choices, important as they are, based on appearances? Don’t they realize that they primarily taste the beer, not just observe it? Yes, goddamn people are lazy.
To be fair, I’m sure plenty of people actually do choose to drink a dark beer, such as a stout or porter, because of the color rather than the taste. But that doesn’t really help me prove my point or strengthen my argument so I’ll not discuss it. (This isn’t a fucking comp 2 paper.)
I’ll stop with the lecture/bitch session there. In any case, next time you ask what a certain beer is like, try not to ask if it’s dark or light. Ask if it’s particularly hoppy or not. If the answer you get doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry about it. Nod your head, pick it anyway (try something new, it’s easy), and just be glad you’re drinking a beer instead of doing something else less fun.
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