[Homebrewers] Fwd: RIP Michael Jackson, Beer Hunter

[Bill & Pati Kenney]

Too bad it wasn't the "other" Michael Jackson.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Craig Zangari" <zangari1 at yahoo.com>
To: "HAZE" <homebrewers at hazeclub.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 10:52 AM
Subject: [Homebrewers] Fwd: RIP Michael Jackson, Beer Hunter


>
> --- Rick Sellers <rick at pacificbrewnews.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Rick Sellers <rick at pacificbrewnews.com>
>> Subject: RIP Michael Jackson, Beer Hunter
>> To: fermentation at goldcountrybrewers.org
>> Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:52:55 -0700 (PDT)
>>
>>  This obit/rememberance is from Lew Brison, it just
>>  seemed appropriate,  pretty much saying it all -
>>  so I'm forwarding it on to you all.
>>
>>    ------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  Michael Jackson
>>
>> =
>>  = =
>>  I just learned that Michael Jackson has died.
>>
>>  Jackson was immensely influential on all of us:
>>  drinkers, brewers, distillers, and of course,
>>  writers. (He could be almost too influential; I
>>  remember one writer telling me that he didn't
>> read
>>  Jackson's work at all any more, because he didn't
>>  want to sound too much like Jackson.) His books we
>> re bibles for beer and Scotch whisky drinkers --
>>  moreso here than in the UK, perhaps -- and his
>>  tutored tastings were ground-breaking. Jackson= was
>>  the first rock star of beer, drawing crowds of
>>  admiring fans whenever he appeared.
>>
>>  I was one of them. I met Michael in the men's room
>>  at the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of
>>  Archeology and Anthropology, during one of his
>>  mass tastings that was part of The Book & The
>> Cook.
>>  It was before I even knew what TB&TC was; Michael
>>  Jackson was in town doing a beer tasting, what
>>  else did I need to know? After the tasting (yes, I
>>  took notes, and still have them), Jackson was sign
>> ing books and I overheard someone asking him a
>>  question about "stock al= e," in the context of the
>>  Samuel Adams Boston Ale, then sub-labeled as a
>>  stock ale. MJ gave a somewhat circuitous answer
>> that
>>  left me still cu= rious (At a TB&TC press breakfast
>>  years later, I told him I admired how he took
>>  questions, any question, from a beer audience and
>>  answered= in detail. "It's simple," he told me. "If
>>  I don't know the answer, I take a sentence or two
>>  to speculate, another sentence to note what other
>> subject that brings up, and then I just answer the
>>  question I want to answer.").
>>
>>  I was a long time in the line for the bathroom
>>  afterwards, and just as I stepped up to the
>>  urinal, I heard some commotion behind me: "Pass
>>  him up! Oh, please, Mr. Jackson, go ahead! After
>>  you!" The next thing I knew, there was MJ at the
>>  porcelian appliance next to me. I took the
>>  opportunity to introduce myself, declined an offer
>>  to sha= ke hands, and asked him "So the stock ale:
>>  is that really a style, like a New England biere
>> de
>>  garde, or just an extra-aged ale?" He eyed me,
>> still working, and said, "Well, more age, more hops.
>>  It was made, but I don't know if I'd call it a
>>  style." I thanked him, we washed up, and t= hen
>>  shook hands. I'd met Michael Jackson.
>>
>>  Working with John Hansell at Malt Advocate gave
>> me
>>  a lot more chances to talk to Michael; he and
>> John
>>  were good friends. Eventually I would wind up
>> editing his column for the magazine. It was not
>>  something I looked forward to; Michael was a bit
>>  of a sloppy writer at times, largely because of
>> the
>>  rush he was always in. MJ always had numerous pots
>>  boiling at the same time, a project here, a
>>  project there, trips, visits, lectures, editing,
>>  writing. He was immensely productive: multiple
>>  columns in print and on-line, books on beer and
>>  whisky, feature articles, video series, CDs. If
>> it
>>  was about beer or whisky, he did it.
>>
>>  But it was Michael's sense of place that really
>>  made his writing so important to me.  When MJ wrote
>>  about a beer, he wrote about where it was brewed
>> and
>>  where people drank it, the look of the walls and
>>  the lay of the land, why the town was there and
>>  who the brewer's father was.
>>
>>  I remember driving Michael around on a tour of
>>  area breweries, a day that turned in to a travel
>>  disaster. He was two and a half hours late leaving
>>  New York, thanks to some skinny git who was
>> trying
>>  and never did open a brewpub in NYC, but still
>>  managed to hold MJ's attention all morning; I
>>  suspect he simply refused to take him to Tony
>>  Forder's house until he'd said all he had to say.
>> We
>>  had to cancel the appointment at Yards and drive
>> on to Brandywine Brewing near Wilmington in heavy
>>  rain.
>>
>>  Yet when Michael got there, he calmly pulled out
>> his
>>  notebook, tasted beer, and started asking
>>  questions...about the rug in front of the
>> fireplace.
>>  "Now why is that rug there? It doesn't look like
>>  the right place, it doesn't really fit with the
>>  rest of the room. Is there a spot on the floor?
>> Why that rug?" I was baffled and a bit annoyed; I
>>  brought him all this way to find out about a
>> cheap
>>  little imitation oriental rug? Dave Dietz shrugged
>>  and said "It's just a rug."
>>
>>  But as we slowly, slowly m= ade our way up through
>>  heavy rain and ridiculous traffic to the Stoudt'= s
>>  Fest, arriving an hour before it ended (MJ made a
>>  quick tour of the f= loor, and then locked himself
>>  in Carol's office with a bottle of Triple= ), I
>>  realized that he was right. The rug didn't fit on
>>  the wide expanse= of blonde wood floor. Except it
>>  was a touch of softness in an open spa= ce,
>>  something interesting. Whether he ever wrote about
>>  it or not (and I= never saw anything about it), it
>>  was a memory key, a small something t= hat would
>>  bring back the whole feel of the place. I learned
>>  that trick,= and use it myself.
>>
>>  Maybe the most valuable thing I learned from
>> Michael Jackson was that importance of place. I
>>  learned it second-hand= , because it was actually
>>  something he told John Hansell, and John's ha
>> mmered it home to me: you can't write about a place
>>  if you haven't b= een there. Seems simple, obvious,
>>  yet I see writers crossing it ev= ery week. I did.
>>  I'm working to overcome that, and to go to the
>>  places = I write about.
>>
>>  What Michael meant is that it's crucial to go to
>> the place where beer or whisky is made to understand
>>  it. I finally went= to Scotland for the first time
>>  just last month, and Scotch whisky make= s much
>> more
>>  sense to me, even though I've been drinking it for
>>  years. I= went to Köln and Düsseldorf in January
>>  to get my own personal unde= rstanding of kölsch
>>  and altbier. I went to Bamberg,= I went to Aying, I
>>  went to Andechs. I'm planning a trip to Ireland, an
>> d a trip to Belgium. And it's all because of Michael
>>  Jackson.
>>
>>  Wh= at I do, every day I write, is all because of
>>  Michael Jackson. If MJ ha= dn't been there to fire
>>  my interest, to show me a path that could be ta
>> ken, I'd still be a librarian. I might be happy with
>>  that, but I wouldn= 't have had the fun, the late
>>  nights with great people, the satisfactio= n of a
>>  well-written piece or the satisfaction of opening
>>  someone's eyes= to a great beer, if not for Michael
>>  Jackson.
>>
>>  It's hard to belie= ve he's gone. We all knew he
>> was
>>  sick, he had been staring down Parkins= on's for
>>  years. When I came across him walking to his Monk's
>>  dinner wit= h Carolyn Smagalski this past spring,
>> he
>>  seemed cheery, lucid, and not = so weak as he had
>>  been. We greeted each other gladly, and walked on
>> to
>>  = Monk's. He did a great presentation, good
>> stories,
>>  much less meandering= than usual. It was the last
>>  time I'll see him.
>>
>>  Michael Jackson = has died. I'll miss the man, the
>>  writer, the friend.
>>
>>
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