October 12, 2006 -- Here we go again. Yet another consumer magazine has tried its hand at Consumer Reports-style beer tasting and rating, this time the venerable New York Magazine.

It is usually with some trepidation that I approach these commercial forays into beer judging, not because I believe that only people who get paid for it should rate beers – contrary to the image sometime portrayed of me at a certain beer aficionado website – but because so often the beers being tasted are taken entirely out of context and judged as something they most definitely are not. Which makes me wonder if these same magazines would assemble a tasting panel to cast judgment on a mix of chardonnays, ports, Champagnes, sherries and first growth Bordeaux. Somehow, I think not.

But I am nothing if not open-minded, so let's take a look at how New York does. If you wish to follow along, the article is available online at http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/22308.

Things start off well, with New York inviting David Pollack to lead their tasters through a selection of high- and low-end brews. David is identified as an employee of the Spuyten Duyvil, a splendid Brooklyn beer bar, so I think it's safe to assume that he has a pretty good hand on the styles the group is about to assess.

But then a quick scroll down the page shows the usual mix-up of styles – a brown ale tasted beside a German pils? a rauchbier and a chocolate stout sampled side-by-side? – and 21 beers tasted in five flights, entirely too many for one sitting, in my opinion. Then there's the fact that, aside from Pollack, not one of the tasters is identified, meaning that readers don't know if they're Bud or Dogfish Head drinkers, if they’re ever tried anything more experimental than a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, or even what the ratio is of males to females. All we know is that they're all "untrained but enthusiastic."

Now, on to the beers. The first shock comes in the form of a pan of Jever Pilsner, a crisp and tasty German pils good enough to be hailed by Michael Jackson as a "world classic" and boast a pretty much permanent position on the taps of the leading New York City beer bar, d.b.a. World classic? Nope, not according to the panel, the female members of which deemed it like "eating straw." Could its bad review have something to do with the uniformly sweeter beers it was tasted beside? We'll never know because context is not given.

(The second flight is of low-end, mass-market lagers, which are identified as “not horrible, just interchangeable.” ‘Nuff said.)

In the third group of beers, another fine brew is given the cold shoulder, Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale, “the maltiest, nuttiest example of (its) style in Britain,” according to Mr. Jackson. Was the panel warned of the beer’s natural minerally character, or was the bottle perhaps light-struck, as clear glassed beers are wont to be? Again, I’ve no idea, since we readers are told only that it “garnered mockery” and was said to taste “like a leather shoe.” Maybe the peppery, hoppy, slightly funky character of the Saison Dupont sampled with it swayed the palates of the tasters.

Moving along, it becomes apparent that the panel might have a thing against pilsners, since the highly enjoyable Sly Fox Pils is given a “collective ‘eh’.” Then again, it’s tasted with a pale ale and a hefeweizen, purely because all three beers are sold in the can, so that could explain some of the problems with it. (“Hey Robert Parker, why don’t you taste this robust California cab alongside that flinty Sancerre? After all, they’re both sold in 750 ml bottles…”)

Finally, in the “Avant-Garde” flight, we see the great Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier (another “world classic,” according to the inestimable Mr. Jackson) and the “Belgian-style” (huh?) British Lee’s Harvest Ale given poor reviews, possibly although not necessarily because the panel members weren’t given enough notice about what was coming up, since you can’t reasonably expect a novice beer taster to go from a malty, spicy ale like one of the Achel line – which we don’t know, because it’s never identified as blonde or brown – to a smoked lager like Schlenkerla without first giving them warning. And what’s with the Rogue Chocolate Stout getting bad marks because it “looks like road tar”? Wouldn’t that mean that any stout would receive the same grade?

In conclusion, while I can report that the New York beer review story is better than some I’ve seen, I must also say that it suffers from many of the same flaws that have downed those before it. Which is certainly unfortunate, since not only do many fine beers receive undeserved discredit, but because most of those procedural errors could be easily fixed if editors just instructed their staff to treat their beer tastings as seriously as they would a panel assessment of wines.

Search The Real Beer Library For More Articles Related To: Jever, Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale, Saison Dupont, Sly Fox Pils, Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier, Lee's Harvest Ale, Rogue Chocolate Stout

Feedback?

We're very interested in your news, notes, comments and questions, so please feel free to contact SBWoB by clicking on the link below. Or you can add your comments when you sign up for the World of Beer Update, a mid-month e-mail newsletter that brings even more of the world of beer to your computer.

Send Feedback To: beaumont@worldofbeer.com