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22-12-2011, 14:40
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This starts off as a post about books and bread but bear with us, there’s beer at the end.
If you really want to know about snobbery, Jeffrey Steingarten (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Steingarten) is your man.
Nothing in the food world is chicer than salt, and despite an excess of God-given modesty, I must admit that I got there very, very early… acquired a little walnut box and filled it with [I]fleur de sel. I bring it out only in Europe… My salt sophistication has only soared since then.
Somehow, though, he gets away with it, perhaps because of the self-mocking with which he laces his articles.
In his second collection of articles, It Must’ve Been Something I Ate (2002), Steingarten talks about Parisian baguettes. He observes that, in the past, beautifully made, fine-tasting baguettes were what everybody ate. At some point, a new type of baguette made using strong bread flour — fluffier, whiter, easier to produce in large quantities — came along and took over. In recent years, however, the real thing has started to make a comeback.
Although he then goes on to recommend various small bakeries across Paris, he also says something surprising for a food snob: that the versions of the traditional baguette being made by chains of bakers such as Paul (currently appearing across the UK) are pretty good too and certainly a good thing.
There are French food lovers who fear that… branded baguettes may bring standardization to the world of handmade bread. Having wandered in the baguette wilderness for 20 years, I will feel that I’ve reached the promised land if… [they] set a minimum standard that innovators can strive to exceed.
Is this what beers like Blue Moon (http://www.bluemoonbrewingcompany.com/) are about? Or is this the niche Brewdog are beginning to fill? They are, let’s face it, a pub chain and supermarket supplier these days, but if their Punk IPA is what counts as pile-’em-high Tesco discount fodder, then that’s got to be a sign that things are looking up in terms of the basic standards people expect from their beer.
There have been quality control issues with Punk this year — we had a bad bottle in the summer — but, at its best, it is bursting with flavour and yet also very accessible. Needless to say, it continues to be a shame that they can’t let the beer speak for itself without the tiresome marketing nonsense.


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