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In the early 1970s, when Michael Jackson first came on the scene, the idea of a professional beer critic must have seemed absurd. You didn’t need a professional, after all, to help you choose between one pale, fizzy lager and another. They all got you equally drunk.
Since that time, beer culture in the United States has undergone a revolution. The 1980s saw the introduction of the first microbreweries and brewpubs and by the end of the 20th century, beer had become a full blown phenomenon, with thousands of varieties made in the U.S. alone, and thousands more being imported from countries, such as England, where once proud traditions – which had been momentarily subsumed in seas of tasteless, golden suds – were reinvigorated by the burgeoning movement.
Jackson, or “the Beer Hunter” as he was widely known, was the father of that movement. He devoted much of his life to the grand tradition of beer, traveling the world to chronicle beer culture, and arguing fiercely for beer’s due as a great, and greatly underappreciated, cultural achievement.
Jackson was the sine qua non of beer writing. Borrowing heavily from the traditions of wine criticism, he developed a lexicon that was uniquely beer. His comparisons of the flavor of a Belgian lambic to “wet horse blankets,” among other unorthodox descriptions, became the secret lingo by which beer lovers knew each other. He made it okay to take beer seriously, and his writing provided the critical framework for a generation of writers, making way for everything from glossy beer magazines to the New York Times’ popular column “The Pour.”
Jackson’s books remain both a pleasure and a valuable guide. From his workman-like and essential Beer Companion: The World’s Great Beer Styles, to his more colorful assessments of world beer culture in The New World Guide to Beer, and a variety of magazines and newspapers from the Guardian to Playboy, Jackson’s writing was notable for its vivid, use of language and dry wit.
In his last, sadly prescient column, for the beer magazine, All About Beer, Jackson discussed his struggles with Parkinsons and took a moment to meditate on the death of the New Yorker’s jazz critic Whitney Balliett
I am wondering how [Whitney] is coping with being offered a position Upstairs when all decent jazz clubs (not to mention drinking dens) are in the Other Place.
Hopefully, Jackson hasn’t found the selection too bad.
Bonus Link: Jackson’s blog