Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 55: Cerveza in the afternoon at Pamplona’s Fiesta de San Fermín.
I fly to America every other month on average. I have been doing this for more than 20 years, and have visited every state. I come here for the beer … and interviewers still don’t believe me.
— Michael Jackson, 2001
We return to Michael Jackson (1942-2007), a bewhiskered, professorial Yorkshireman in spectacles, wearing a succession of loud beer-themed neckties. He was equally proud of his working class English roots and a grandfather’s Lithuanian Jewish heritage, the latter periodically referenced by nods to Baltic Porter’s exotic hinterlands.
He introduced Belgian ale to the world, and Belgian brewers to each other. Most importantly, he popularized a taxonomy of beer styles, and while this is a subject for augmentation, revision and seemingly endless current debate, it’s hard to imagine contemporary beer and brewing without such a conceptual framework.
Lest there be any confusion (really, could there be?), I’m speaking here of Jackson the accomplished journalist and pioneering beer writer, who wasn’t at all perturbed by the existence of a far better known American musical namesake.
An episode of The Beer Hunter, his essential 1989 television series, began with the host wearing a white glove to inform viewers that while his name might be Michael Jackson, he neither sang nor drank Pepsi, but wrote about beer.
In autumn of 1994, it was revealed that Michael Jackson would be making a day-long stopover in Louisville during the course of an ongoing journey through the United States. He was examining beers and breweries emerging from the burgeoning American “microbrewing” movement, then numbering just over 500 breweries nationwide, the bulk of them concentrated in New England, the upper Midwest, Colorado and the West Coast.
Two breweries existed in Louisville in 1994: The Silo Microbrewery, founded in 1992 at 630 Barret Avenue (permanently closed in 1997), and Bluegrass Brewing Company’s original flagship location at 3929 Shelbyville Road, which opened in 1993 and shuttered in 2017, although at present, BBC still brews at its Third & Main restaurant downtown.
As we’ve seen, Louisville’s two popular homebrew clubs were Louisville Grain and Extract Research Society (L.A.G.E.R.S., founded in 1989), and Fermenters of Special Southern Indiana Libations Society (F.O.S.S.I.L.S., in 1990). Both clubs were primary conduits for interest in all things beer, including all-purpose beer appreciation as well as homebrewing, this being the era prior to the Internet’s proliferation when information was emphatically not a handy mobile device away.
BBC’s David Pierce was a go-to source for homebrewers, as was Eileen Martin, who had replaced him at the Silo and was an early exemplar for women seeking their proper place in male-dominated brewhouses.
For those of us pursuing better beer, the internationally renowned beer expert Jackson’s visit to Louisville stood to be every bit as impactful as a concert by the Jackson who performed music. His very presence would be validation that our two local breweries were on the national map, and November 19, 1994 was going to be wonderful, almost like a holiday.
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Jackson would be visiting both BBC and the Silo to taste their wares, and to meet loyal readers, brewpub patrons and homebrewing club members. His efforts were aimed at researching a new book about American microbrewing, and we could only hope his new book about beer* would be as good as the first, which came out of nowhere and completely changed the way many of us henceforth would drink (and think about) our preferred adult beverage.
By the start of 1977, Michael Jackson was a mildly successful, 34-year-old newspaper and television journalist…he would exit 1977 as the leading authority on beer in the English-speaking world, maybe the whole world. For it was during that year that publishers Prentice-Hall and Littlehampton Books Services released his World Guide to Beer in the U.S. and the U.K., respectively. It was a groundbreaker in terms of explaining and popularizing beer.
— Tom Acitelli
Michael Jackson’s World Guide to Beer fell into my hands at some point around 1983, long enough after its original 1977 publishing date for the book to be stacked atop the discount tables at mall bookstores the nation over, and still a few years before the triumphant second edition was published in 1988.
Between the two editions, I made my way to Europe in 1985, intent on tasting the beers Jackson had described, and experiencing the culture of which they were so integral a part. World Guide to Beer was as much a foundation of my preparations as Europe on $25 a Day (yes, really, you could) and the Thomas Cook European (Rail) Timetable.
It is quite impossible to overstate the influence Jackson had on me, my ultimate choice of a career in beer, as well as many thousands of other beer drinkers. We doted on every word, and continue to find in Jackson’s elegant and precise prose a purposeful rationale for our quest for the perfect pint.
In one sense, and sadly so, much of World Guide to Beer and its subsequent companion volumes are decidedly obsolete, because the world (and beer) has changed considerably in nearly a half-century since.
Today it’s easy to read Jackson’s prose as elegiac, and to see the sepia tones seeping between the lines, delineating all that has been lost. He understood at the time that the traditional beer ways were passing.
Fortunately Jackson was an exceptionally engaging writer, and his written passages bring extinct beers and demolished breweries back to life again.
You can hear the Bavarian beer hall chatter amid clinking liters of Helles, feel the vibration of marching feet as British factory workers approach the pub for their cool pints of Mild, and smell coal smoke, pig ordure and farmyard verdure right around the corner from the Dupont brewery in rural Hainaut, Belgium.
For me, Jackson was the beer world’s Samuel Johnson, the 18th-century English essayist who established expository norms for non-fiction and wrote a dictionary of the English language. 150 years later, Jackson synthesized Johnson’s stylistic and organizational approaches and did much the same for the language and vocabulary of beer.
Jackson did not invent the notion of beer styles, but he introduced them for the consideration and further refinement of a bland, lager-soaked planet, though it is his association of beer with place that survives as the finest representation of his genius.
Those 20th-century industrial fermentation factories may have stolen beer from its traditional point of localized orientation, but Jackson stole it back — first a little, and then a lot, and now nearly 10,000 American small(er) breweries later, either you get it, or you don’t.
Jackson generally refrained from detailed technical writing, possessing instead an intuitive ability to filter hyperbole of the sort favored by marketers, and to viscerally reconnect beer to its “terroir” in terms of physical geography, human culture and social conditions. He did so factually, wittily, majestically, and always with supreme lyricism.
Not exactly the King of Pop, but surely a duke or viceroy of what mattered most to me: beer.
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“I still see people buying and swilling terrible beer. I sometimes think that my job is like farting against a gale, but I just keep moving forward.”
— Jackson, circa mid-1990s
David Pierce had been contacted by Jackson’s agent, who instructed him to book a hotel room and have someone waiting at the airport to meet the writer. Despite being an inveterate sandbagger, I eagerly volunteered to help. Rich O’s Public House would be closed for the day; our customers were all going to BBC or the Silo, anyway, and how often would there be a chance to spend time with the Beer Hunter himself?
I’ll always be grateful for the opportunity to join David upon Jackson’s arrival. He was hard to miss coming up the jet way, hirsute, a tad frumpy, and lugging a portable typewriter. We had a nice chat and dropped him off at the Seelbach to freshen up.
It proved to be a gratifying afternoon. David guided Jackson on a tour of BBC, then the writer was seated for beer flights. He kept notes with a reporter’s pad the old-school way, and seldom took more than an ounce of beer per sample, making occasional comments and asking questions. It was work, not play. Surely we ate at some point, although I can’t remember a single bite.
Jackson had a few books in print at this stage, and event attendees brought numerous copies for autographing, as well as a few bottles of their own homebrews, which he sampled with the same polite efficiency and constructive comments as for the BBC’s varieties.
The scene was repeated at the Silo, with Eileen joyfully chaperoning Jackson through the building, and with perhaps two dozen beer geeks making the trip from St. Matthews to Baxter Avenue.
Then something completely unexpected happened.
Several of the attending beer enthusiasts who lived in Indiana asked if we’d consider opening the Public House for a celebratory nightcap. No problem, but on a lark, someone decided to ask Jackson if he’d join us.
He agreed, and I almost fainted on the spot.
It seemed there would be yet another beer hunt, this time embarking from downtown Louisville at 9:00 p.m., crossing the Ohio River to an embarrassingly unfinished strip mall bar space that could offer a scant three beers on tap. Jackson was riding with Eileen, and we three Rich O’s co-owners dashed off from the Silo a few minutes ahead of the convoy to flick on the lights, tidy the pub, and make the barroom somewhat presentable for habitation.
Thankfully Jackson appeared to enjoy himself, and was able to enjoy a fairly relaxed pint of Sierra Nevada Porter, his only full pour of the day. What’s more, his appearance at our pub set into motion another interesting tale that didn’t come to fruition until 2000, at a locale 1,000 miles away.
(See below for the December 1994 addendum to Jackson’s visit.)
Next: Part 57: Beer writer Michael Jackson’s reaction to the Red Room at the Public House.
(Photo credits: Amy Baylor and Kate Lewison)
* Jackson’s intended book about American microbreweries and their new-school beers never appeared as planned. The “microbrewing” scene was growing so rapidly in the 1990s that old-school publishing couldn’t hope to keep pace, and much of his research was reformatted for the new kid coming to the block, the World Wide Web.
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As an addendum, here is the December 1994 account of Jackson’s visit that I wrote for the FOSSILS newsletter.
Beer Guru Michael Jackson’s November 19 Visit to Louisville
A large number of FOSSILS, LAGERS and unaffiliated beer enthusiasts gathered at Bluegrass Brewing Company on Saturday, November 19 to greet renowned beer writer Michael Jackson, who for all practical purposes invented the genre of beer writing and has gone on to provide the intellectual foundation for the brewing renaissance in America.
Jackson’s visit to Louisville came on short notice, with details arriving only five days before the man himself, but his hastily-conceived itinerary went off without a hitch and must be viewed as a major boost for Louisville-area beer enthusiasm in general and for Bluegrass in particular.
The legendary Beer Hunter arrived at Standiford Field alone from Chicago, carrying with him a “portable office,” a couple of carry-on bags and one small suitcase. After checking in at the Seelbach, Jackson was escorted to the BBC, where he tasted the brewery’s current lineup and was given the grand tour by brewmaster (and FOSSILS President) David Pierce.
Beginning at 4:00 p.m., Jackson signed books and chatted with all who ventured forward to meet him, and there were enough beer lovers in attendance to keep him busy for three hours, including one well-wisher who brought his young son and told Jackson that although his child wasn’t old enough to drink yet, he would see to it that only good beer would be consumed when the time came.
Shortly after 7:00 p.m., the scene shifted to the Silo, where Brewmaster Eileen Martin conducted a tour and tasting for Jackson. Many of those in attendance at the BBC followed the party to the Silo, and then to Rich O’s Public House for an impromptu nightcap.
The following are a few random thoughts and facts about Jackson’s visit on the 19th.
Jackson was preparing to return briefly to his home base of London, having spent much of the previous two months constantly on the move here in the States, amassing material for an upcoming book on American breweries.
His visit to Louisville was not Jackson’s first. Previously, he had been to the area to do research for his World Guide to Whiskey.
Jackson wouldn’t be pinned down as to a “favorite” beer, saying that he prefers to drink what is unique and local (maybe he’ll have the chance to sample some of the BBC’s Kentucky Common beer on a return visit someday). However, he conceded that his favorite brewing area is Belgium.
In personal terms, Jackson is soft-spoken and reserved, incisive when seeking information and very funny when the opportunity for a quip is presented. There were no traces of pomposity or abrasiveness during his visit.
Jackson wants to do another Beer Hunter series for television, but must wait for some snafu to be corrected by the sponsoring network in Britain.
He said that BBC’s Kölsch was one of the better American brewpub versions of the style that he has tasted, but pointed out that none seem to capture the essence of the style as it is brewed in Cologne, Germany.
Apparently overcome with emotion upon meeting Jackson, former FOSSILS president Stan Brown was able to do no more than very quietly whisper the words “we are not worthy” to me before toppling off a bar stool.
Jackson’s parting words from Rich O’s, where he enjoyed a pint of Sierra Nevada Porter and was exhaustively briefed on the lurid details of the FOSSILS revolution by Vice-President Mark Keeler: “I’ve been to many pubs in America, and I’ve never seen one quite like this.”
Accepting these words as some variety of divine sanction, after Jackson left we immediately played Nirvana at high volume, suspended the Mark Francis “No Singing!” Decree, and continued to serve free beer to the usual suspects, some of whom lingered on until the wee hours.
