Yankee Brew News Archive

Letters

Originally Published: 10/97

Dear YBN:

I've been biting my tongue for two months. It's time to spit some blood. I really feel the need to say a few words about Gregg Glaser and your esteemed panel of certified beer judges, you know, like the Naughty Nurse. This note is to subside the trembling feeling that I get whenever I happen to think about The Yankeee Brew News and appease my co-workers here who can't understand why I didn't say anything after the shelling of our Nut Brown in the June/July issue.

Here was my rationale: Contrary to the statement at the beginning of Gregg's illustrious section, the sample used in this slaughter was not shipped directly from the brewery.

I had personally overnighted a sample of our Summer Breeze (right now I don't know why) to be dissected by the esteemed panel the day before I read the dissertation on what the esteemed panel felt a brown ale should be. I was curious to know how one of our non-pasteurized, non-microfiltered, constantly-refrigerated beers would fare with the esteemed panel if I was reasonably certain that it was handled correctly. I am fairly satisfied with what the esteemed panel had to say about the Breeze and am now certain that my partners and I not in the wrong business.

Putting aside the potential mishandling of a highly perishable product, I want to mention the slaughter's effect on my partner - and excellent brewer, Peter Quinn. Pete did his best to estimate what batch the esteemed panel may have sampled and immediately went to his personal "brewer's refrigerator" to start tasting with our crew from his catalog of batch samples. Our most-likely-less-esteemed panel found no significant flaws in any of the Nut Brown batches that we had cataloged for the past months. Pete is constantly evaluating that our beers are the best that they can be with respect to how they are designed.

I want to mention a few others out there that were offended by the esteemed panel's slaughter - Wachusett Nut Brown drinkers. Customers. (felt I needed to put in a Butthead comment there). I was enthralled by the number of phone calls, e-mails and face to face comments my staff and I received from those that were also personally offended by the esteemed panel's slaughter of a beer that they enjoy so much. Fortunately, I found that our customers are strong and intelligent people who believe in their preferences. These customers chose to keep their favorable opinions and stand up to the esteemed panel. This is what kept the slaughter in perspective.

I am contemplating writing an article on "Brewing for your Critics or Brewing for your Customers, Staying in the Business that you Love, and Living a Happy Life."

I do not think, that we will ever commercially brew a beer that will satisfy your esteemed panel. We brew beers that cater to our customers' likes and are thriving on it.

I would be interested is seeing the esteemed panel's comments on some of the experimental brews that Pete has created for our personal consumption. Like his Summer Breeze wort fermented with a Weihenstephen yeast strain sans citrus extract. Creamy, clovey, spicy, yummy and traditional. The folks down the street at Kleve, Germany based Spectro Analytical Instruments go crazy for it. Marketable in Central Massachusetts? Unfortunately not quite yet - hopefully someday. Too bad the esteemed panel will never get to taste these beers with significant character. Kerry Byrne (a guy we feel supports local beer) is welcome to stop by and try Pete's specials when they are available.

I will continue to enjoy the fruits of why we got into this business whenever I taste one of Pete's special creations as equally as I savor my personal favorite profile - marketability - in my personal favorite beer, Wachusett Country Ale. As the business guy for this company, I love the flavor of marketability.

I would think that you may want to have a talk with the esteemed panel to consider how they handle their rating system of the locally brewed beers that, in my opinion, have made YBN a viable publication. Words of strong condemnation do not necessarily help our industry. As Pete mentioned, the panel may want to take a look at how Michael Jackson (an expert in the area of judging) handles review of products that he is not completely enthralled with. If the esteemed panel's tastes do not jive with the marketability of a product, a simple "not recommended by this panel" may suffice.

On the other hand, an industry such as ours presents an interesting situation where an esteemed panel of judges' personal opinions actually would discourage the reader from trying local beers and judging for themselves. It might just be me, but this would seem to work contrarily to the reason YBN became viable. I guess with any criticism column, the reader obviously has to make his or her own decisions.

A judging qualifications profile of the esteemed panel may also be of interest to your readers. It would be to me.

I'm much better now.

Ned LaFortune

President

Wachusett Brewing Company

Westminster, Massachusetts

Dear Ned:

It is important that our readership is given a balanced perspective in order to make informed decisions about the products that we each produce: yours being beer and mine a newspaper about beer. This is the reason that viewpoints from industry authorities, like yourself, are so important to us. I must point out, however, as our associate editor, Kerry Byrne, indicated in the last issue of the YBN (Microbrewery Profile: Downtown Brewing Company) that,"...brewers throughout New England complain that distributors are dropping their beers like acid at Woodstock..." Hence, all is not so rosy for the New England beer industry as in past years. This along with the drought of medal winners at the GABF prompted the Yankee Brew News to sponsor a New England competition this November in Rhode Island.

I wish to further point out the Yankee Brew News has a proud history of supporting the New England craft brewing industry as a whole since 1989 and Wachusett Brewing Company in particular since 1995. We've supported your enterprise beginning with feature story on Wachusett, " Wachusett Brewing Company Introduces Craft Beer to Worcester County." in February, 1995. We continued to support Wachusett Brewing company with editorial content in our "Below the Frostline" and "What's Brewing New England" columns throughout 1995, '96 and '97

Of course, I'm used to members of the brewing community "cry foul" whenever an unfavorable review crosses the lines of our broadsheet. There are publications in our media that will happily bury anything negative, sacrificing journalistic integrity for the pursuit of advertising dollars. This approach, however, will not stay the specter of the alarming number of microbreweries and brewpubs closing their doors for failure to compete in today's marketplace.

Whether the resulting review of Summer Breeze was affected by some anomaly in the reviewing process is something I'll investigate. The rating Summer Breeze received in our August-September issue was "Good-An overall good example of style": not what anyone at this publication would even remotely consider as an unfavorable rating. The only better rating Summer Breeze could have achieved is an outstanding rating which is not something we trifle with at this publication. The review process is supposed to be an unbiased evaluation of New England Beers in the opinion of certified beer judges, which includes the expertise of our associate editor, Gregg Glaser.

Regards,

Kenneth W. Spolsino, General .Manager, Yankee Brew News