McNellie's Pub Ale.

Sometime, about four score and seven years ago, I promised a more thorough review of the Marshall's McNellie's Pub Ale from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Well, I just opened the bottle I brought home with me several months ago, and it's pretty great.  Still way overcarbonated, but no floaties this time.  Maybe some production snafu bottling at the pressure meant for kegging?  I don't know.

Anyway, once the substantial and persistent head subsides, the beer is awesome.  The malt is right up front, big, sweet and caramel.  But then come the hops - to give it a perfect balance front to back.   Really good.

It actually reminds me of the Marshall's Atlas in that both have a balance that shifts in time from malt to hop.  I think that's part of what defines the character of a great beer - not just that the flavors balance well in the mouth initially but that they change throughout each drink and as you progress through the bottle.

Good job, Oklahoma.

Place.

In the past week, I've had the opportunity to sample local beers from craft breweries in two states - Goose Island Beer Co. in Chicago, and Marshall Brewing Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The Marshall beer, Atlas IPA, is excellent.  The malt and hop flavors complement each other extremely well.  There's big malt, but the brewer didn't overcompensate and let the hops completely dominate.  They're there alright - and sharing the spotlight - but it's not a "typical American IPA."

The Goose Island beers that I had - the Pere Jacques and the Matilda - however, were both labeled "Belgian-style ales."  Ignoring for a minute the fact that "Belgian-style ale" inherently lacks meaning - dubbel? saison? wit? which Belgium? - I wondered why a Chicago brewery, ostensibly proud of its own hometown, would cede its beer to another country clear across the ocean.  

Both the Goose Island beers, however, were true to their meaningless labels - they were copies of "Belgian-style" beers - particularly the Pere Jacques, which I found to be underattenuated and sweet almost to the point of being sticky.  It was as if the brewer sat down with bottles of Chimay, Westmalle and Rochefort and decided he would make a beer that mixed all three together.  With predictable results.  Admittedly, the Matilda was a much better beer.  She had a character that was at least somewhat unique, even if not inspired.  In the end, though, the beers seemed like a forgeries - an imitation without any inspiration of its own.

Which I guess brings me back to Jean-Marie Rock's statement that Americans should stop copying the Belgian beers and make their own damn beer, which I can't seem to stop thinking about as I work out Blackland's future.

My good friend Joe Stange over at Thirsty Pilgrim, who just published his own book, "Around Brussels in 80 Beers," recently said that "it doesn't matter where beer is from any more than it matters what style it is."  With all due respect, I think Joe is less correct as to the irrelevance of place, than the irrelevance of style.

Styles give the consumer a chance to know what they're getting into, and most consumers want to know roughly what they're buying.  If I want a clean, crisp lager for a hot summer day, I don't want to spend my money on a Russian imperial stout - and it would be rude of the brewer not to let me know basically what I'm buying.  Modestly educated consumers know that styles are amorphous and flexible, and won't be overly concerned so long as the beer is in the neighborhood.  That being said, I hate it when brewers stick a detailed style-description on the label.  I don't want the brewer to tell me what I'm tasting - that's my job.

Joe's point is well-taken, though - that the ideas that inspire great beer can come from anywhere - an American style based losely on a British style but brewed in Belgium - but I'm increasingly of the opinion that all beer - like all news - is local.

There is no reason a brewery in Chicago should be selling cheap, knock-off manikin pis statues.  The brewer should go outside, smell the air coming off the lake, the sausage, the pizza; the brewer should understand the atmosphere of the city, the people, the Cubs, the White Sox.  That should be what inspires great beer.

I've been thinking quite a lot about my next beer, a reconsideration of Texas Lager, which I hope will be the flagship for Blackland Brewing.  I used to live on a farm, about 30 miles northeast of Austin, at the end of a long gravel driveway in the middle of pastures and cotton fields.  I remember the spring days, the bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush blooming, the sky a shade of blue that only exists in Central Texas.  It rained overnight.  The pastures and trees are resplendent green before the heat of the summer sets in.  Cattle stand along the barbed wire fences watching the farmers drive casually by.  I'm driving down a one-lane road, beer between my legs, my beautiful wife in the passenger seat - windows down and the sun shining in her hair.  That's what I want my beer to taste like.

Knowing how Belgian or British or American brewers make their beers is helpful for technique, but a Belgian sure as hell can't bottle my idealized image of Texas.  And I shouldn't try to brew their idea of Belgium.