LEO/LHB: We Tappa Keg at BJ's & The BBC Tap Room

Todd,

I was referring to the small batches made at the BBC in St. Mathews. I go there a lot. I love their beers, but there is definitely variations batch to batch. Some are probably intentional, some are probably not. I'm sure you know that there are a lot of things that can change the flavor of a batch of beer, even given identical ingredients which is hard enough to accomplish. Batches of hops vary from year to year etc. etc. Good beer is like good wine. One year or batch can be better than another.

That's why home brewing is so much fun. You never know exactly what you'll get, and you can experiment with each batch,

I found BJs beer to be very good, if maybe not unique. Budweiser is not good. The comparison is therefore not valid. There is no trick to making consistently bad beer. The trick is to make consistently GOOD beer. I think the bottled BBC beer is very consitent and very good. It's not great. It's not like BJs is the only place I can get a beer that tastes like that, but they do a good job, and I was impressed with their ability to so accurately and consistently produce the various types of beers they had.

I think Robin gave them fair credit for it. Roger seemed to slam them for it. I don't think that was fair.

Hey Roger,

Just curious here (because I wildly disagree with you), but shouldn't an establishment be commented for putting out a very accurate and very good representation of a certian type of beer? Aren't flaws, by their very nature and name, unintended consequences of a less than perfect system?

You are in essence saying that BJ's beers are flawless examples of each genre, but it is that flawlessness, that lack of unique character, that detracts from the memorabless of the experience. While I agree that the uniqueness of a particular beer is what makes it special, the ability to create accurate and flawless examples of a wide variety of beers, all having good (if not unique) flavor is a pretty impressive accomplishemnt.

Unintended flaws in the process can be good, but they can also be bad, but I have trouble rewarding someone for making a mistake, not matter how good the results. Saying that BBC and NABC et al are better because they (you) have screw ups that give the beer character is kinda silly.

I brew my own beer. No 2 batches have been the same because my process is very flawed. I've made some really good beer, and some really bad. I've had some batches that I would give anything to repeat, but I can't. I'll never be able to accurately recreate the exact environmental factors that caused the good outcome.

BJs can. They do.

To me, that is an impressive accomplishemnt. Maybe lacking uniquenss and character, but impressive none the less. They should be commended for it.

Sorry, I've been away and missed all this.

Robin has already addressed this, I think, in his observation that there are dozens of places in between our respective generalizations. Here's what I wrote originally:

"The problem with BJ's beers is that there was no soul to any of them ... and, not unexpectedly, that's the trouble with chains in general. Idiosyncracies are what make masterpieces real, not 'mass-productive' perfection. All that does is prove the proficiency of the assembly line. I see no reason why that should impress me."

Nothing that has been written in response fundamentally alters my response. I was not defending "flaws" in the first place. Rather, I'm upholding the notion that assembly lines don't make life special or unique irrespective of how perfectly they can reproduce commodities. I'm not arguing that we don't need the mass-production of certain commodities in a nation of 300 million people. I'm saying that a numerous breweries could replicate the volume of beer brewed, while adding their own twists and turns along the way.

Admiration for A-B as an industrial enterprise makes sense, and like the bracelet of Reardon metal around Dagny Taggert's wrist, it just might turn some folks on. Not me. Life's too short to sacrifice individual differences.

IMHO.

I love it!

"Who is John Ga.., er, Roger Baylor?"

They have a name for individual differences run amok. It's called chaos.

There is a place for consistency, and achieving it is one of the most difficult things for a business (or person) to do in life.

I for one wildly applaud a person or company who can consistently produce anything of very good to great quality. It is an accomplishment far beyond the occasional and random burst of excellence. It is also important to note that quality is more easily achieved on a small scale. The larger the scale, the more impressive the accomplishment.

You enjoy Iron Butterfly... I'll stick with the Rolling Stones.

I thought BJ's beer was very good. Not amazing, not excellent, but very good. That's impressive given their status as a chain.

They have a name for individual differences run amok. It's called chaos.

Hail Eris!

I thought BJ's beer was very good. Not amazing, not excellent, but very good. That's impressive given their status as a chain.

Ditto. Then again, I thought the same thing abour Gordon Biersch. So that makes two chain brewery/restaurants that make very good beer.

Oh, and about Roger's last paragraph above. The proper analogy is that Hank Reardon is like the craft brewer making a better product than the industrialists just pumping out the same old steel.

Since we're celebrating the little guy, the local, the rockys among us, I say, let's raise a glass to Louisville's foremost independent brewery ... Falls City. Here's a link to a wonderful site that recaps our hometown brew's history: http://www.falstaffbrewing.com/falls.htm. You can tell the site is a labor of love.

On a side note, I've had wonderful dining experiences drinking Bud and eating a fried fish sandwich on the river. It's a guilty pleasure. I've also enjoyed my share of home and micro- brews. I've drunk my share of really skunky home brews, too. Tonight, this beautiful warm night, it was Pacifico with lime - an attempt to hurry on the summer. I guess, as with all things, one's beer preference depends on a lot of factors: economic (I wonder at what price point would Joe Six Pack switch from a mass to a mirco brew), social (if my friends aren't drinking the brewhouse's IPA, I probably won't be exposed to it) and personal taste. Nothing earth-shattering there.

Now, off to play quarters.

I've drunk my share of really skunky home brews, too.

I doubt it. Skunky beers are caused by exactly one thing, light interacting with hops. Most homebrewers try really hard to keep their beer out of light. Maybe you have been drinking from homebrewers that bottle in clear bottles and store their beers in the sun, but I doubt it. Or maybe you just meant "really bad home brews". I will accept that. But skunkiness refers to one specific flavor, and it only has one cause. Personally, I keg most of my homebrew. No light is getting thru that stainless steel. I may serve bad beer to my friends, but I wont be serving skunky beer.

Pet peeve, I couldnt let it go.