Michael Jackson died yesterday and for me the greatest sadness of this loss is that despite him achieving all he wanted to achieve in the United States his legacy to the British brewing industry will remain questioned, and his passing will not generate the emotional earthquakes that it will in the United States. This is a tragedy, for it is the people of his homeland that owe a huge debt to Michael for is unwavering and selfless pursuit of the celebration of beer.

For me he was the great inspiration, he turned base metal in to gold with his writing. Not only was it full of articulate observation of the character of beer itself but it wove in to its nature the history of the peoples and society that created it. He brought beer alive by showing to us all that what was present in a glass was more than just a liquid, it was a story, a triumph and would always provide a moment to savour, to uplift and to foster fun and reverence.

His honesty and forthright appraisal with what was wrong in the British brewing fraternity was too much for many, and shunned by his own homeland he was equally emphatically celebrated as a hero in the New World. In the US he was the first object of attention for the ‘Beer Groupie’! To a large extent what he achieved in the US - bastion of the bland circa 1980, the most creative brewing fraternity in the world now - will indirectly help shake his homeland into the creative vein he always wanted to see. American micro-brewing has spawned a new generation of young brewers in the UK who refuse to accept blandness and mediocrity, and it is these people who owe the greatest debt to The Beer Hunter.

My memories of him go back a long way. Originally his Pocket Guide to Beer acted as my Inter-rail guide through Europe in 1980, it showed me European history through a beer glass, and woke within me a desire to create great beer for a British populace that was being sold short by the keg revolution and ersatz brewed-under-licence fizz. Ten years later, having travelled a brewing odyssey through Europe and the States I sat in a café and read a full page review he had written in the Independent of my first British Brewing exploit at the Packhorse Brewing Company in Ashford. I read it and wondered how he managed to spin together anecdotes of Kentish hop culture, Ashford medieval past and the pure German tradition that inspired my first brews. It humbled the simplicity of my reasonably mediocre creations. This is when I learnt my first Michael Jackson lesson He never, ever criticised the nature of beer publicly, even if it fell short of what he felt right at the time.

The second lesson he bestowed on me three years later. I took him my own personal tour of Bavaria, a key theme of which was my lament upon the lack of hefeweizen in the UK. He was insistent that when we returned I should brew a clear or Crystal-Weizen, and slowly but surely introduce the British public to a taste that would only be acquired if presented incrementally with encouragement and persuasion. Hefe-Weizen, in its unadulterated form is now ubiquitous.

It was on this trip where Michael’s surgical wit and unabashed honesty knocked myself and others back in a scene worth recounting. We were with Georg Schneider VI at his Weiss Beer Brewery in Kelheim, a shrine to the history of wheat beer brewing. Frau Schneider had proudly introduced us to the new ad campaign, which, to be frank, struck a very Bavarian note. The lead poster was of a huge blond haired, brown skinned farmhand Adonis wearing lederhosen and carrying a bale of wheat on his shoulder: a sort of Bavarian Chippendale. When Frau Schneider asked Michael what he thought he responded in his quiet clear and composed voice ‘ Frau Schneider, it is far too Nazi.’

Countless more lessons were learnt when I first judged beer with him at the Great American Beer Festival in 1995. His peerless objective appraisal of beer and the generosity he showed to young aspiring brewers and fellow judges meant sitting at ‘his’ table to judge a flight of beers was a gold ticket, and as a young brewer at the time, one I can’t forget. He was teaching and leading a generation of brewers in the United States that are currently setting new creative standards in the brewing world. Tomme Arthur, Vini Cilurzo, Tom Nickel to name but a few.

This is the legacy that Michael Jackson’s work will leave the brewing world. A new generation of Brewers who slowly and indirectly will raise the standards and variety of beer in his homeland, and for a Yorkshireman, who as they say in Lancashire ‘would prefer a good gripe to a five pound note’, this is an act of generosity typically untypical of the man himself.

Every time I drink a Rochefort 12 Michael I will make a toast to you. Thanks for everything.

Alastair Hook
Brewmaster
Meantime Brewing Company
31st August 2007