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You are here: home → archives → Nov 2009 → article
By Gary Robson
People have been writing poems about beer as long as there has been beer to write poems about. One of the oldest written recipes was found on a set of stone tablets that were inscribed almost 4,000 years ago. The recipe is in the form of a poem called the Hymn to Ninkasi, and it is a recipe for making beer (Ninkasi was the Sumerian goddess of brewing and beer).
If you'd like to read the Hymn to Ninkasi, take a look at my very first Beer Snob column, from November of 2007.
In late October, a poet named David Ash came to Red Lodge Books to read his poems and sign his books. He has a dozen books of haiku, including Haiku for Chocolate Lovers, Haiku for Coffee Lovers, Haiku for Tea Lovers, and Haiku for Wine Lovers. He did not, alas, have anything for beer lovers.
In my own modest fashion, I've decided to express my thoughts on beer this month in haiku, to fill the glaring gap left by Mr. Ash. Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry consisting of three lines with a fixed number of syllables in each line, forming a 5-7-5 pattern.
Here, then, is my personal commentary on beer, in Haiku form. Enjoy!
Aromatic vines
Sticky buds dry in the sun
Hops add aroma
Harvest the barley
Germinate, dry, and roast it
Malt! For scotch or beer
Small organisms
Turn sugar to alcohol
The yeast makes the beer
How do you unlock
Flavors of malt, hops, and yeast?
Water is the key
Yeast carbonates beer
So can big CO2 tanks
I prefer the yeast
Mash, sparge, decoction
Sounds like serious science
But beer is still art
The hydrometer:
Answering brewers' question:
How much alcohol?
The fermentation:
The best part of beer-making
Don't you love the smell?
Brettanomyces:
Beer-contaminating yeast
Now used on purpose
To filter, or not?
A brewers' tough dilemma
Just not the hefe!
Some like it ice-cold
Brits like it a tad warmer
I just like good beer
Mugs, steins, and glasses
Flutes, tulips, snifters, and pints
Each one affects taste
Have a yard of ale!
It's a really cool glass, but
A real pain to clean
What size of serving?
A bigger glass saves money
A small glass stays cold
In bottles, in cans
By the pitcher, by the glass
Just keep it coming
Made for sailing ships
High alcohol; lots of hops
Robust I.P.A.
Remove some barley
Add wheat and change strain of yeast
Presto! Hefeweizen
Deep, rich, dark color
Plenty of flavor to spare
Stout: Meal in a glass
Crisp, frothy Coors Light
Not much taste or aroma
Is it really beer?
Lots and lots of malt
Heavy, sweet, aged a long time
That's a barleywine
Top-fermenting ale,
Bottom-fermenting lager:
I'll drink either one
Berries in wheat beer,
Rich chocolate in your stout
Fun ingredients
A long, hot workday
Time to unwind and cool off
I'll have a pilsner
Since this is Haiku
I should mention Asahi,
Sapporo, Kirin
The people of Budweis
Have lost the name Budweiser
To Anheuser-Busch
Haiku for coffee,
tea, wine, cats, dogs, but not beer?
For shame, Mr. Ash!
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It may make sense for the "wine snob" to be a cheapskate, but when the price of a really good beer is usually less than twice the price of a crummy cheap beer, it doesn't pay to be cheap. Gary talks about beer styles, history, brands, and whatever else comes into his head.
See more Beer Snob columns.
