One of my favourite beer writers is English beer guy Pete Brown (not to be confused with Edmonton’s monstrously creative Peter Brown– whom I also love immensely – host of CBC’s RadioActive,). The British Brown is the author of some hilarious and informative books about beer – his latest being the historically revelation-ary Hops and Glory. I go to his blog a couple of times a week because it is reliably intelligent, cozy and entertaining.

His latest post does something, from a British perspective, I have been wanting to do for ages. He does an analysis of the big corporate breweries. He doesn’t review their beer (mostly), but instead looks at how they treat beer in an existential sense. I found it to be marvelously insightful and studied. He avoids the easy path of casting them all with the same accusation of destroying beer, and tries to understand their individual cultures and their implication for good beer. You can find the post here.

The easiest thing for beer geeks like myself is to dismiss the global brewers as pariahs and lucifers intent on destroying the goodness in our favourite beverage. But that is a cartoon characterization of these corporations. The reality is more complex. Don’t get me wrong, I am not defending them here, but I do think that we lose sight sometimes that these companies are filling a demand that our favourite craft brewers can’t satisfy. There are a lot of people – I know because I have met them – who just want their beer to be cold, refreshing and cheap. An Alley Kat Full Moon or a Blanche de Chambly (two beer I consumed tonight) is not what they want. So who am I to say that their beer choice is somehow wrong?

Anyway, back to Pete Brown. What I like about his piece is that it doesn’t pre-judge the companies. He evaluates them on their actions and how they deal with the brands that they own. I disagree with him on some points, largely because we live in different locations. For example, he is far more charitable to Molson-Coors than I ever could be, especially given their ruthless closure of the historic Edmonton brewery a couple of years back (which had been operating continuously since 1913). But maybe in England their track record is better than here.

At any rate, I encourage you to read his post. It is informative and thought-provoking (at least it was for me). It is a great example of how to be a beer geek and a beer journalist at the same time. It is also a good reminder for us all that every style of beer has its place, and we need to respect it for what it is, not what it should be in some kind of beer-y Valhalla.