Brewed Beverage of Choice: A Wee Nip of Tamnavulin 12 Year Old Single Malt Scotch
On August 30th the brewing world, nay the whole world, lost a great writer and person, Michael Jackson, aka The Beer Hunter. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of reading any of his works, search it out. Without his never-ending promotion of Microbrews, our revolution would have been quite smaller. Unfortunately for me, I had never had the pleasure of meeting the man. In my mind it is like the band you always wanted to see but never got the chance like The Doors or The Beatles or The Police.
The past few days I have spent most of my time reading memorials, tributes, etc. and hoisting up a pint of Red Seal Real Ale at my favourite British pub, The Moon and Sixpence. I played darts with my friends Abe, a beer writer himself, and Ben, brewer for Hopworks Urban Brewery. And yesterday I began training someone to take over the other brewer position at me pub. The whole time Mr. Jackson was on my mind and I could feel his presence everywhere I went.
Because I never got to meet him I do not have that story much like every other brewer I know. I do have however a story of how Mr. Jackson helped change my life. Several years ago I was wandering around trying to figure out if I should change my profession to brewing. At that time I was an unemployed Marketing manager for Architects and Engineers. I was a member of a home brewing club here in Portland. At one of the meetings a member who I had been speaking to could not believe I had never seen The Beer Hunter, never the less even heard of Michael Jackson. Embarrassingly enough I made the mistake of asking why we were talking about the King of Pop at a homebrew club meeting.
My friend gave me a dusty, old copy The Beer Hunter on a VHS tape. Remember those? It changed my life. I did not believe I had the strength and courage to change careers completely to brewing. But after listening to Mr. Jackson’s passion about beer ignited my own passion which had been brewing if you will for some time. I said to myself, ‘I want to make the type of beer He seeks out!’ And so it continues…
Now that He has passed I wish I would have met the man who helped me make a tough decision. But I vicariously have met him through my brewing friends who have had the honour. My traditional sessions brews and love of Real Ales are a testament and tribute to a man many of us in the brewing community have to thank for our blessed careers. And we will NEVER be able to thank him enough! Cheers to you Michael! You helped many of us live out our dreams, and we thank you!
Prost!
a solemn and humbled confucian brewer