美国啤酒简史

The backstory of beer encompasses religion, science, art, economics, politics, and culture. Ancient brewing recipes on tablets, the pilgrim's beer supply on the Mayflower, beer wars of the late 19th century, Prohibition in the 20th. The recipes change, but its role as a social lubricant has been consistent for centuries. You gotta assume that everybody likes a little buzz. It helps create community, you know, alcohol not in excess can create bonding and create a little social lubrication that allows people to maybe live in cities where maybe without alcohol it would have been a little more difficult. The intoxicating effect of beer must seem like magic to ancient people who undoubtedly discover it by accident. Because there's no rational thought process that gets you from grass to drunkenness. Randy Mosier is a beer historian and the author of many books including Radical Brewing and Tasting Beer. He says brewing beer is not overly complicated, but it is a process, a transformative experiment for the ancients who discover it. If they take this sprouted grain and mix hot water with it, they got something sweet. And in the ancient world, outside of a little honey and fruit in season, there's not much sweet. You know, we crave sweetness. And so to be able to have something sweet, and of course the next step is, oh, I left that out all night, now it's not sweet anymore, but man, I feel kind of good. Evidence of the oldest example of brewing goes back 11,000 years to Eastern Turkey. These are nomadic people. They're out there with their family groups and little tribal groups, with their animals and their kids, and to come together to share religion, to share culture, to share language, to share food, to trade their sons and daughters off so that they're not married in their own villages, you know, and so beer was really the impetus for that. They have no idea the magical feeling comes from the waste product of a single cell fungus called yeast. That doesn't sound very appetizing, but we don't need to understand the chemistry or the biology of tasting receptors. I like beer because it's so varied, because there's something for every mood, every season. It can be strong or weak or light or dark, just has a huge range of flavors, a lot of complexity. Early Americans prefer mostly whiskey and rum, but political strife in Germany forces some to leave and head for America, bringing their beer recipes and beer gardens. When they started to bring this culture in, it was actually reviled as dirty immigrants. We had a lager beer riot here in Chicago because of the Germans and the Irish really wanted to be able to drink on their one day off, which was Sunday, and it actually resulted in the mayor getting kicked out of office and the Germans had their way, and eventually of course they were mainstreamed into American society. And then prohibition. We lost all that tax revenue. We lost all those jobs. Then we have a depression. I don't know how much coincidence it is, but I think it played a role. And so by the 1930s, people were really done with this. But the industrialization of beer in the 20th century leads to bland beer. It's Budweiser, it's Miller, it's Pabst. But really, they were basically all more or less the same. And for a really large company, they prefer to just sell one product. You know, that's the most efficient way to do it. And then they can battle it out on TV and with sports celebs and things like that. Tired of bland beer, Americans decide to brew their own. Back in the 1970s and early 80s, Charlie Papazian and others start a revolution in craft brewing. Well, let's just make it ourselves. We can't buy it. Like, how hard could it be to make it? And it turns out it's not that hard to make. Once you get to explore the nuances of a craft beer where you're paying more attention to every ingredient that gets introduced into the process, it can be so much more than just yellow fizzy beer. Mike Gemma of Haymarket Pub and Brewery in Chicago is part of that next generation looking for creative ways to stand out in what has become a crowded market. You're seeing brewers start to put things like chocolate cake into their stouts just to see how it turns out. In 2008, there were 1,500 craft breweries in America. Now there are 8,000. But something's missing. Where are the black brewers? In Chicago, only a tiny percentage of the liquor licenses belong to African-Americans. Mike Gemma reaches out to help two African-Americans pursue a dream. It's extremely important to be able to give, to be able to share, and to learn together the things that we don't yet know. Jay Westbrook used to sell jewelry and fix watches, but food and drink are his passion. With Haymarket's help, he makes the switch. You know, a lot of places are not willing to take a chance on a kid who has the knowledge but doesn't necessarily have the experience in it. Jay brings in his friend, Sam Ross. And while I was working at Whole Foods, I noticed that all the privileged shoppers weren't so uptight when they got to the liquor department. And so instead of stocking cans, I asked, can I go stock the craft beer? There weren't a lot of African-American people doing that. So I knew to be respected, I had to know just as much or double what they knew to be a part of those conversations. And they were all nice to each other, and they had cool tattoos and man buns and stuff. And I wanted in, bro. I wanted in. Together, Sam and Jay work with Haymarket to come up with this, Harold's 83 Honey Ale. Harold's 83 Honey is, I had tipped to many Chicago institutions, all with the name Harold. Harold Washington, you know, Harold's Chicken, and one that's kind of under the radar, Harold Baines, who also had a hell of an 83 himself. Every beer tells a story, and it allows for me to express myself creatively. So what story does your beer tell? Well, it's a story of, first of all, inclusion. He says that means bringing other African-Americans into the beer game, and not just as waitresses, and bartenders, but as brewers. To come into our pub, to have that relationship, to meet the brewer. The story seems to be an important ingredient in craft beer. Randy Moser has his own craft brewer project, Forbidden Root. So we wanted to create an environment where it tells a story, because it's hard to do that on a shelf. Beer shelves are now crowded, liquor stores are picky. The brew pub is a chance to share a drink, and a story. Forbidden Root's story is botanical. We just like to use everything, different fruits and spices and herbs. We make beers that have liqueurs, that are sort of based on cocktails or liqueur ideas. Beer, there are so many variations, cloudy, clear, bitter, or sweet, something for every mood, every season. Craft brewers have brought the art back to brewing. You know, in art, everybody steals everything, right? There's nothing new. It's only a matter of kind of going back and finding something that's from an older time that happens to fit the context of a modern world, and you go back and forth and back and forth. And so for me, it's part of the creative process. You know, we're trying to tell stories, we're trying to just create beers that are easy to approach, but a little bit different than everybody else's. And when you drink them, they're delicious, and you want another one. Cheers.